Ugh, I’m actually kinda glad to see Killing Bites. Is it because I enjoy it? Oh no, no, no… Y’see, I just got done with writing up Beatless. That show certainly has its flaws, but it is also incredibly wordy. As a result, it’s just nice to change things up every once in a while. It’s nice to be able to dive into something so mind-numbingly stupid like Killing Bites. Alright, let’s get started.

— Oh great, backstory for Yuya. ‘Cause he’s important. Yep. He sure is. He tells us how he’s been drifting through life, just doing whatever people told him to do. He’s so weak and ineffectual that a bunch of gang rapists felt they could rely on him to be an accomplice. That’s how pathetic he is. And sadly, he’s pretty much drifting through this Destroyal as well. He’s so useless that Hitomi mostly calls the shot. Oh sure, he cares about his pieces, so he’ll move them to try and protect them. Yep, this is anime, so the main character’s strength will always be his dumb heart.

— Everyone is shocked (still not as annoying as Krillin and Master Roshi) to see that Hitomi is still standing, but enough about that. As I’m watching this scene, I can’t help but wonder why we almost never see duplicates. The one time we had duplicates, it was because they were lesbian twins or some nonsense like that. I’m just saying… if Taiga Aisaka is so damn strong, why haven’t they made more of him?

— Taiga’s deadly move tries to trick opponents into a bad move so he can counter-attack them. Ah, but if you don’t move, then he can’t counter-attack! Genius! I recently read that the hide of a honey badger is strong enough to withstand spears and machete blows. I don’t know how true that is, though. I’m not exactly going to go attack an innocent animal just to see if my weeb shows are accurate.

— Bunny Girl crashes the party just to warn Hitomi about Kido, but as soon as she sees Taiga, she tries to take off running… but if she came here via an underground tunnel, why doesn’t she just use it again? Ah, whatever. More importantly, the girl doesn’t get very far because she suddenly starts getting horny. Yes, you read that right. Now click on the linked image because you obviously want to see a horny anime girl pretending to be a rabbit.

— Everyone thinks Taiga will kill Hitomi so Yuya just goes along with it. He just thinks the girl is doomed, blah blah blah. He even allows Yoko to taunt him relentlessly. Eh, it’s not like running away loses you the game. It’s not like Hitomi can’t just regroup elsewhere and fight Taiga again later. The anime makes it seem like it’s a great big shame if Yuya orders her away from this square, but I really don’t see it. He should also be paying attention to what Bunny Girl is saying, but I guess everyone just ignores her.

— Man, I don’t give two shits about Yuya’s sudden crisis of confidence. Just get back to Hitomi.

— This dork starts telling us how much fun it has been to hang out with Hitomi… like the time she abused him because he didn’t understand what she was signaling to him. So much fun.

— The BGM here is pretentiously overwrought.

— In the end, Yuya remembers that he’s supposed to believe in Hitomi. Great, we repeated this bit of character development all over again. It’s also a foolish move in my opinion. Yes, I have the benefit of knowing that Kido will soon crash the party, but it’s not like Yuya can’t know that as well. He simply remains a useless character through and through.

— More importantly, he’s still leaving his life in the hands of others. He simply chose to put it in Hitomi’s hands this time. He’s still a spineless loser through and through. That lady can go on and on about how it takes fortitude to let others dictate your life, but that’s pure sophistry. Alright, we wasted enough time with the boring humans. Go back to the brutes already.

— Taiga finally attacks, but Hitomi is prepared for it this time. But again, we don’t get to watch these two throw down, because this scaly tail comes out of nowhere to knock her aside. I guess Kido is finally here… and judging by the tail, I would have to guess that he’s a lizard of some sort. What is he? A komodo dragon?

— Yoko reveals that she taunted Yuya because she knew he would keep Hitomi in place. As a result, Taiga would also remain in place, and this is the ideal location for Kido to take them both out. Oooh, what a mastermind. Nobody could’ve predicted that!

— Apparently, using Kido is a dirty tactic. Shocking. But Yoko will do whatever it takes because winning this Destroyal will surely get her grandpa back! Here are the carefully laid-out steps:

1. Win the destroyal!
2. ???
3. Grandpa stops being a creepy fuck!

— We get a flashback in which the characters claim that Hitomi’s existence is a crime against nature. Uh, why? In fact, Kido was never caged. He could’ve broken out any time he wanted. He decided to help Yoko because he also agrees that Hitomi is a crime against nature. Again, why?

— Meanwhile, Bunny Girl frees herself from the lusty civet, and tricks the woman into falling into a seemingly bottomless pit. Uh… this sure is something, alright.

— Hitomi tries to fight back against Kido, but none of her attacks can do anything against the guy’s armored skin. I guess her sharp fangs can’t bite through everything… or can they? We all know she’ll win this stupid contest at the end of the series.

— Kido readies his killing blow, but Taiga saves Hitomi at the last second. Why? Is he trying to be honorable? Not really. He’s just salty that Kido is targeting Hitomi first. He then tries to attack Kido, but like Hitomi, his attacks do nothing. Eventually, Kido reveals his complete form and he’s not a lizard at all! He’s a pangolin! Who would ever find such a cute little mammal threatening? Killing Bites, apparently. Man, I still think a komodo dragon would’ve been better.

— But that’s it for this week’s episode. If Hitomi didn’t want to regroup before, she’ll definitely have to do it now. We’ll find out next week how she’ll accomplish that.

Last week’s episode was chockful of character drama. Sadly, we are right back to dry, boring war planning for the majority of this week’s episode. 

— Did I really need to hear Milza’s grunting right from the get-go? Apparently. In any case, he has now succeeded his father. In other words, he murdered his father. Good job, Marrine. You sold your soul to the devil.

— Villar meets with his advisers and starts giving out orders, but troop movements have never been more forte. I’m just not particularly interested in wartime strategy. Give me human drama and I’m there. On the other hand, telling me that X will go here, and Y will go there will soon make me want to claw my eyes out in boredom. I’m just going to focus on the fact that Theo will soon have to defend himself against Bultava, an enemy I’ve never heard of until now. Such is the way of this adaptation. Also, Villar will seek aid from neighboring kingdoms, but they’ll just go down with him if they lend a hand. That’s how I imagine this narrative will unfold. We’re nearing the halfway point in the series, so it’s due time for things to go dire fast.

— Who are these guys? Don’t know either. I think we’re meeting them for the first time. If not, they must not have met a very strong impression when they last appeared. Such is the way of this adaptation.

— We continue to meet more new faces. Check out this woman being attended to by some dark-skinned servants. Hmmmm. Apparently, she has a real big ship. A really, really big one.

— Then we cut to this guy addressing his battalion of soldiers. His men sure do resemble the ancient Roman army.

— Finally, the focus returns to Theo and Siluca, but even though they should officially be a couple now, we won’t be addressing what happened last week. After all, they’re about to be attacked by Bultava, and Theo won’t have very many men by his side. But hey, he’s the protagonist, so he should be used to being the underdog by now. What’s going to happen is that he’ll pull through somehow with his meager forces, then someone goes, “BAKANA!” Or they’ll say, “Omoshiroi.” It’s always one of the two.

— A Dartanian fleet fast approaches Castle Unicorn, but it’s obviously not that the aid that Villar is hoping for. He does at least get to see a friendly face, though. Margaret has come to warn Villar of Milza’s character, but I mean, he should’ve never trusted a man who looks like that. Evil people always look evil. Such is the way of this adaptation. On a more serious note, what I don’t get is how Villar is acting as if he’s truly surprised by Milza’s actions. The man has said over and over that he will only support someone with ambition, so how did Villar not see this coming? Not only that, Milza has proven himself to be completely merciless and bloodthirsty in battles. I doubt that this has somehow been concealed from Villar’s eyes. So unless our lord is just putting up an act — and I don’t know why he would do so around Margaret — he just seems hopelessly naive.

— We get to watch Milza butcher some more people. This week’s episode has been high on new faces and violence, but woefully low on interesting characterization or drama. I’m kinda bored.

— Seriously? One of Altirk’s great weapons is a giant mirror that focuses (I think) magical energy into a beam of destructive power. What’s sad is that the poor mage operating the device is not a killer. This is probably the first time she’s ever had to take a life, so I feel for her. After all, Villar blundered himself into this conflict.

— Those fire effects are hella bad, though. C’mon, A-1 Pictures. Did you run out of your SAO money already?

— Villar vows to confront Milza directly on the battlefield, because he doesn’t want any more of his precious men to die. Ehhhhh, it’s a bit late for that. Moreover, he is one step closer to his death. Would we really go to all this trouble just for the guy to best Milza in combat? And sadly, I suspect he’ll drag Margaret down with him. The mage will turn against her country because Milza supposedly annihilated her clan. Once again, the rushed adaptation destroys any possibility for Record of Grancrest War to tell a compelling story. There’s a lot of hate between these characters, but these strong emotions are never properly developed. Instead, we merely learn about them through a single line of dialogue.

— Theo ends up being able to summon more men to his side than he and Siluca had initially predicted. The mage wonders if he’s actually beloved, but he denies it. Everything just feels so rushed, rushed, rushed.

— Haman’s giant ship, a.k.a. the Palace of the Sea, almost looks modern. They manage to repel Milza’s fleet for now.

— As for those new faces we met at the start of the episode? They’ve already been routed in battle. Rushed, rush, rushed!

— B-b-but what about Lord Solon!

— The guy shows up just in time to help the Earl of Regalia escape, but he proceeds to fall in battle within the next two minutes or so. Rushed, rushed, rushed! Like sure, I’m not the biggest fan of war scenes, but I still prefer to have these battles play out properly. A guy shows up and immediately dies by the end of the episode. This tells me that he isn’t very important. If he isn’t very important, why are we wasting our time with him? This confounds me, because in the after credits scene, we learn that Theo is successful in defending his territory from Bultava. Theo is important, and yet, we barely spent any time with him last week. We wasted all our time and energy elsewhere instead. Solon has a lot of machismo, so I have no doubt that some viewers will be tricked by that and find him awesome. But for me, his role in this story is nothing but cheap filler.

— Anyways, after receiving all the bad news, Villar seems rather fatalistic about his current predicament. He tells his mages that they still have the sea as their ally, but he is not speaking with much heart or conviction. He seems prepared to lose.

— Don’t you hate it when episode titles end up being spoilers? It’s not a big secret that Altirk will fall or anything, but this just seems easily avoidable. Ah well.

Do you like re-watching scenes that you’ve already seen before? Well, have I got an episode for you! 

— We get a real long recap to open this week’s episode. Almost unnecessarily long. It actually does have some new bits, but nothing that significantly changes the tone and tenor of what we learned last week. After Sophie and Martin’s parents died, none of their relatives were willing to take the two kids in. Naturally.

— What’s Queen doing in that container of water? Apparently, that’s how you enter true El Dorado. We also learn that King had ordered Bishop to dispose of Sword’s body, but the latter simply assumed that falling into the vat would do the trick. Man, these villains can never get their shit together.

— We’re now getting quick recaps of the entire series. They’re really drawing this out, which only cements it even further in my mind that Garo – Vanishing Line should’ve just been a one-cour anime series from the start.

— We just keep seeing the same dead bodies over and over. I get it, man. They’re dead, and Martin is partly responsible. Sophie’s speech would be a lot more powerful if it isn’t a carryover from last week’s ending.

— Finally, eight minutes into the episode, Martin breaks free from Sophie’s grasp and runs away.

— We cut to Sword, Gina and Luke. Our hero is resolved to save Sophie at all cost. It’ll redeem him for being unable to save his sister even though her death wasn’t his fault. Unfortunately, Queen just has to get in their way. We all know Knight will rear his ugly mug at some point. Even though Queen should outrank him, she doesn’t even get to be the penultimate boss.

— We also have to be reminded that all of this is happening way out of west, because the government has supposedly just given up on this lawless patch of land. Why? Shrug. I guess they don’t have enough soldiers to subjugate a handful of small towns and a Dubai-wannabe city-state?

— What a gratuitous angle in the middle of an action scene…

— The good guys amusingly rocket-jump their car over the gap. Sword runs on ahead to save Sophie while Luke and Gina stay behind to deal with Queen and help evacuate the city’s remaining human population. I like the trick. It’s the first thing I’ve liked so far in this episode. Let’s hope it’s not the only thing.

— But we’re right back to flashbacks as we learn how Martin got recruited in the first place. Queen literally shows up at his apartment with an evil ring. Wouldn’t you find it odd if your prospective employer wants you to wear some gaudy piece of jewelry?

— Wouldn’t you also find it odd that the chief of security looks like some video game warrior?

— Wouldn’t you find it weird that they keep referring to you as the El Dorado King?

— It also seems like the evil organization could’ve avoided all this trouble if they had just bothered to kidnap Sophie right from the start. Why did they recruit Martin and leave her behind? Considering how critical he was to their overall plans, they should’ve locked her up to use as a bargaining chip.

— Also, the guy plays a huge role in creating true El Dorado, and yet, he didn’t notice any irregularities in the project’s code? Man, programmers are so naive, am I right? They have no idea that technology can be so evil!

— Hm, in one of the flashback scenes, Queen seems annoyed that Martin only cares about helping his sister and others. The true King is lurking in the ring, but Martin is too pure to be corrupted like it. That’s hilarious. Sophie’s wrong about Martin; he hasn’t become a Horror at all! He’s pure-hearted like she is. Sadly, he’s also a blind code monkey who’s been tricked by evildoers.

— Back in the present, Martin at least seems to finally realize that he’s nothing more than a pawn in some sick game. Unfortunately, this is accompanied by more scenes from last week’s episode. Hoo boy, MAPPA is a big fan of recycling.

— Outside, we see Queen wreaking havoc in the city, but eh… the action here is perfunctory at best.

— It’s the same ol’, same ol’. Our villain is super cocky, and it looks like the good guys can do nothing to stop them. But at the very last second, Luke and Gina use a little trickery to get the best of Queen. Is this the last that we’ll see of her? Eh, I doubt it.

— And ironically, Sophie’s rejection of her brother is what triggers his true despair. Finally realizing now that his hands are stained with blood, Martin’s heart weakens enough for the evil ring to finally poison and fracture his mind.

— She finally finds her brother, but it’s too late (again). The ring overtakes his pure-hearted soul, and we finally get to meet the true King…

…are you for fucking real right now, Garo?

Presents? What’s the occasion? Well, it turns out that you get to request a gift from Papa once a year. Goro can’t help teasing Ichigo for getting a stuffed cat. Apparently, the girl always asks for something childish. On the other hand, I can’t tell what tell what Kokoro got. Is that a box of make-up or pastries? Or something else entirely? Ah well, it doesn’t matter. They better knock her episode out of the park, because at the moment, she and Futoshi are kinda boring. They bring the least drama to the group, which is good… but they also don’t really stand out in any other way (other than Futoshi’s bottomless appetite, of course). Last but not least, Zero-Two continues to separate herself from the rest of the group. I’m guessing she didn’t get anything from Papa. This sets us up for the two main storylines of the episode.

Zero-Two’s Sea Change

Hiro eventually takes Zero-Two aside and gives her a present just so she doesn’t feel left out. Whether or not he even realizes what romance entails, he’s at least a very considerate boy. He’s not perfect, though. First, it’s kinda lame that he got her a personal mirror. I don’t really consider that a good gift. Second, the personal mirror used to belong to Naomi, so Zero-Two’s just getting a hand-me-down from Hiro’s previous partner. To be fair, it’s not like he could go out and buy a gift. There isn’t exactly a mall nearby. He could’ve made something from his two hands, though. At the end of the day, however, I suppose it’s the thought that counts. And unless she’s putting on an act, Zero-Two appears to like the gift. This is one of the small things he can do to help her feel human. Being part of a family and being appreciated are all part of Zero-Two’s socialization.

Later that night, Zero-Two stares at her gift before looking out into the night. I can only wonder what is running through her mind. She seems fixated on her reflection, which would make sense. She has ambivalent feelings towards her own identity, after all. Is she any closer to being human? Or does she still see a monster in her reflection? Our heroine continues to oscillate between the two sides throughout the episode. When a mission to take out a Gutenberg-class klaxosaur hits a major snag, Zero-Two is predictably rather blase about the whole thing. And again, she accepts death as an inevitability. It seems as if she fights not only to kill monsters, but also because it’ll bring her closer to death. Being with Hiro and the rest of the team may change her outlook on life, but that’ll take some time. At that particular moment, she is closer to being a monster than a human.

Goro is trapped in the klaxosaur, and the rest of the kids express their anger and frustration over the situation. Zero-Two silently observes her darling as he clenches his fist in anger. I wonder what she’s taking away from this. She must think that her darling is being emotional and foolish, and yet, something about his reaction must intrigue her. This is what it’s like to be human, huh? She can’t deny her disdain, but the same time, she can’t deny her curiosity either. That’d be my first guess, but I’m charitable to the character and, by extension, the story. I find the current ambiguity surrounding Zero-Two’s true feelings fascinating. Even though she hasn’t been the focus in recent episodes — and likewise, she hasn’t gotten a whole lot of lines to speak — she’s still undergoing some pretty significant character development. There’s a sea change going on inside her, but we don’t know for sure what she’s thinking. She’s never had a darling before, and likewise, she’s never had to care for another team member before. These things are almost necessary, however, for her to become human. After all, humans are (for the most part) social creatures. Earlier on in the series, Zero-Two acted as if she didn’t care about Hiro’s fate. If he had died, it just meant he wasn’t strong enough. But after what they’ve been through lately, does she still feel that way? I don’t think she’s ready to risk herself for Hiro’s sake, but I have to imagine that she’d still be sad. You have to imagine that her feelings for the rest of the team is on a similar trajectory.

Near the end of the episode, the team finally hatches a plan to save Goro. But like all plans, this is a risky one. Ichigo will have to put herself in direct danger if she wants to rescue her partner. Hell, the team doesn’t even know if Ichigo’s suit will hold up long enough for her to reach Goro. As a result, Zero-Two tells Ichigo that she wouldn’t go to such lengths just to save a partner. This doesn’t mean that she doesn’t care about her darling. Rather, she just wouldn’t put herself at such an extreme risk for such a small chance of success. Either way, we have some ways to go before Zero-Two will die for her teammates (assuming that she ever will). Again, it’s a sea change, so it’ll take time. Small moments like Ichigo saying that she believes in Zero-Two will eventually pile up in the horned girl’s heart until she can no longer ignore them.

Goro & Ichigo

It wouldn’t be accurate to say that Goro’s feelings for Ichigo are starting to deepen. After all, they’ve always been there. But with Hiro and Zero-Two doting on each other lately, Goro’s feelings can’t help but treat his love for Ichigo a little more seriously. If he does confess, however, how will Ichigo respond? She’s in love with Hiro, after all. Second, how will Ikuno respond once she finds out? She’s in love with Ichigo, after all. Luckily for Goro, the main character isn’t really his competition at all. Some viewers even doubt if Hiro has a single romantic bone in his body. I don’t necessarly agree with those viewers, but I get where they’re coming from. Nevertheless, you gotta respect Goro for not harboring any resentment towards Hiro. Seriously, what a wholesome dude. He’s been support of the main character since the start of the series. He also tried to resolve last week’s conflict. Again, Goro is just a good dude. The only thing that you can maybe knock him for is ogling the girls at the beach.

After joining Ichigo to spy on Hiro and Zero-Two, Goro tries to have a talk with his roommate about love. Unfortunately, the latter is being rather dense about it, so Goro just comes right out and reveals his feelings for Ichigo. He then immediately goes to bed, but he also claims that he’s currently happy with the way things are. We’ll see. Once the chips are down, I’m sure his tune will change. Still, I wonder why he feels the need to Hiro first. Do they have the sort of dynamic where they can confide in each other about such personal feelings? Later on in the episode, Goro confesses that he was happy being second, because Hiro is special to him too. We don’t know why this is, though. I suppose that will have to wait til another episode, but this might explain why he feels secure enough to tell Hiro about his crush on Ichiro. It’s possible he might have wanted to gauge Hiro’s reaction, but he’s rather confident that Hiro doesn’t like Ichigo in that sort of way. In fact, he seems to think that Hiro is wholeheartedly in love with Zero-Two. While I don’t think Hiro is completely clueless about matters concerning the heart, I agree that he’s not truly in love with Zero-Two yet.

Anyways, you can’t help but wonder what would’ve happened to these kids if Zero-Two hadn’t shown up. Hiro would’ve departed from the group since he couldn’t find a suitable partner. Without Strelizia, most of (if not all of them) the gang probably would’ve already perished on one of the training missions. Likewise, Goro definitely would’ve never realized the true depth of his feelings. Zero-Two didn’t just save Hiro; she saved the whole gang.

Anyways, during the mission, Delphinium had to sacrifice itself in order to save Argentea from danger. And right before a big explosion could go off, Goro hits a button which sends the knocked-out Ichigo to safety. Apparently, the stamen can place the pistil into a protective pod then eject it from the FranXX in a dire situation. It almost looks like the mecha is having a big sneeze. There are no similar escape mechanisms for the pilot, and as a result, Goro remains trapped in the FranXX (which is trapped in the klaxosaur). He then falls unconscious for quite some time, because when he wakes up, the rest of the kids have already retreated back to the plantation. The pistil can operate the FranXX without a stamen, but it is apparently unsafe to do so. On the other hand, the stamen can’t do anything at all without its partner. This means that Goro is pretty much screwed. Nevertheless, he has a smile on his face as Ichigo yells at him. He’s just happy that she can even cry for him; he never thought she would.

In yet another flashback, we learn that Goro was not such a wholesome boy back at the orphanage. He picked fights with everyone in order to isolate himself; this was his coping mechanism. Still, Ichigo saved him by helping him beat up a bunch of kids. Nothing spells love like getting into a fight with your partner. He’s been in love with her since that day. Well, whatever it takes, I guess. Realizing now, however, that there’s a good chance he might die, Goro starts to deeply regret the fact that he never confessed to Ichigo. In fact, back at the orphanage, Goro and Hiro both had the same gift idea for Ichigo: a bird-shaped hair clip. Unfortunately, Hiro got to Ichigo first, so Goro stepped aside. Ichigo continues to wear the hair clip even to this day. It seems as though Goro always assumed that those two would be together one day. But now that Hiro has Zero-Two, he now has a chance that he can’t squander again.

Eventually, Ichigo puts herself directly in the line of danger in order to rescue him from deep within the klaxosaur. Her suit can barely hold up, but she can’t abandon her partner. She acknowledges that they are both helpless by themselves, but they always pull through when they are together. She’s always been too fixated with Hiro to truly realize this, but Miku (of all people) actually manages to talk some sense into the girl. And conveniently enough, Ichigo loses Hiro’s hair clip during the rescue. Since Goro still has the one that he made for her, he gets the perfect opportunity to confess his feelings. I like the fact that he held up his end of the bargain. It would’ve bene easy for him to just be happy that she came for him and put a rain-check on his confession. But instead, he doesn’t back down. After all, she has kinda saved him twice now. As a result, he confesses to her immediately after handing her the hair clip. Ichigo replies that she doesn’t know how to respond to his confession yet, but still, this is good. This is progress. It would’ve been tiresome if she was just going to pine after Hiro all series long. Hopefully, Goro’s confession will shake things up within the group, and both characters can go grow from this. Maybe she can finally step out of Zero-Two’s shadow and stop being just a childhood friend who finishes second. Goro is showing her the way by finally stepping out of Hiro’s shadow.

Misc. notes & observations:

— I’m surprised Hiro has to explain this tradition to Zero-Two. She’s never encountered this before? In any case, this explains why she didn’t get a present. She didn’t even know she could ask for one. What do you suppose Zero-Two would’ve requested? Maybe nothing since she is rather disdainful of the adults. As for Hiro, he requested an illustrated guide on birds.

— Papa’s message to the kids kinda suck. It’s cold and impersonal. The kids love it, though. What a buncha cultists. Hiro notices Zero-Two’s non-reaction to the letter, but how long is it gonna take for him to finally find out that Papa is a fraud? Well, since this episode is all about Goro and his feelings for Ichigo, I’m guessing not until we get through the gamut of character developing episodes. The overarching plot will remain at a standstill while the show busies itself with fleshing out the side characters.

— Ichigo likes to spy on Hiro and Zero-Two, but she’s not even sneaky about it. She’s doing it in plain sight. If Goro confesses his feelings, it’s not only good for him but good for her as well. Her obsession with the two main characters is starting to seem a bit unhealthy.

— Naturally, seeing Hiro give Zero-Two a gift brings Ichigo down. This is why you don’t spy on others. Out of sight, out of mind.

— Only three stuffed animals on Ichigo’s bed. I thought she would have a ton.

— A Gutenberg-class klaxosaur is headed right for Plantation 13, and that screen almost makes me think that a hurricane is about to strike.

— During the meeting, Hiro takes a peek at Ichigo. He’s still got last night’s talk with Goro on his mind, but the girl doesn’t know that. Luckily, nothing seems to come from this small moment. I was afraid she might jump to conclusions about him staring at her.

— These klaxosaurs are so odd. Not only can they can take on any form, they even affect the weather adversely. A lot of them don’t even appear remotely beast-like. At some point, the story will have to tell us what these things are. Unfortunately, that doesn’t appear to be any time soon.

— It seems kinda foolish for Argentea to rush in head-first. Zorome has no clue what this klaxosaur is capable of, and Miku should’ve resisted his reckless impulse. Unsurprisingly, the pink-themed FranXX immediately gets tied up. Even after breaking himself free, Zorome goes and puts himself back into trouble. Isn’t Ichigo still the leader? Shouldn’t she still be calling the shots? Shouldn’t they have done some pre-battle planning?

— Goro instinctively saved Ichigo right before the explosion went off. I wonder if Zorome would have done the same for Miku if they had been caught instead.

— One thing I don’t like is how Ichigo doesn’t look remotely injured. Miku tells her that she should still be in bed, but there’s nothing about her that visually conveys the idea that she took any serious damage from the previous battle.

— I like how Zorome sneaks himself out of the frame. The guy talks a big game, but he’s afraid of Miku when push comes to shove. Unfortunately, his partner’s voice-acting feels a little too restrained in this scene. She’s supposed to be going off on Ichigo. You need to let it flow if you want to get through to someone like Ichigo, but I’m not feeling it here. The scene isn’t bad and the writing is adequate, but it’s the direction that isn’t impressing. A more concerted effort would’ve coaxed out a better performance from Miku’s voice actress.

— Save Goro? Puh-lease, says Hachi: “Our top priority is preventing the target from making contact with the plantation.” Basically, the team has an hour to save Goro. Week in and week out, the adults make it clear that these kids are expendable. What is it going to take before everyone wakes up and rebel against Papa?

— We know that the stamen can’t control the FranXX without the pistil, so Delphinium put itself into a fetal position on its own?

— So the plan is to drop Ichigo through a blowhole at the top of the klaxosaur, and she’ll swim her way to Goro. I’m just amazed she can remain in one of Strelizia’s hands like this without some sort of restraint to tie her down.

— Interesting face mask.

— Almost seems like Ichigo has to go through a sphincter-like opening in order to get through to Goro.

— Why did Ichigo’s entrance have to seem so angelic? Or is that just the thin air playing tricks on Goro’s mind?

— Way to ruin the mood.

— You might naturally wonder the following: if it is this easy for Delphinium to escape, then why did Goro eject Ichigo in the first place? Well, they didn’t know about the exhaust opening until Zero-Two had mentioned it in the meeting room. Goro didn’t know he’d be trapped in the klaxosaur either. He just knew that the mecha would take serious damage from the explosion, and as the pistil, Ichigo would bear the brunt of that punishment. He then assumed his friends would’ve destroyed the klaxosaur while he was passed out. Still, I agree that the show’s action is weak and uncompelling. Luckily for me, I like Darling in the FranXX for its character drama.

— Oooooooooooooooooooh~

School festival time! 

— Wait, what does that have to do with the daycare center? Even Ryuichi goes, “For some reason, the daycare room has to participate, too.”

— They’re going to have toddlers serve drinks to people, but they warn you before hand that the “juice may spill.” Nice!

— On the other hand, this is pretty cute. I have no idea where they’d find such costumes, but Japan is the land of cosplay so I shouldn’t doubt them. If a toddler wants to dress up as a cabbage, by god, he should be able to!

— Unfortunately, Kotaro takes a tumble when he slips on a puddle of juice. This sounds potentially hazardous for the kids. Why has nobody wiped up said puddle? What exactly is Yoshihito even doing? As always, the answer is nothing.

— Apparently, Yoshihito made all of the costumes by hand. Sure.

— Yoshihito marvels over Ryuichi’s willingness to dress up as corn. Eh, is there a joke I’m missing here? Is it embarrassing to be corn?

— Maybe it’s just me, but Kirin looks way too small compared to her dad here.

— For some odd reason, Kirin’s mom requested that the babysitters put on wigs and pretend to be girls. Why? We don’t know for sure yet, but it seems her husband expects the daycare to be run by girls and girls only. And seeing as how this is anime, everyone’s going to think that Ryuichi makes for a super cute high school shoujo.

— Uh, Kirin’s dad also thought that the rest of the kids would be girls, too. Did his wife lead him to think that his daughter was attending an all-girls school or something?

— Kirin’s dad to the baby Midori: “If I were thirty years younger, I’d ask for your hand.” I can’t believe someone not only married this guy, but also had a kid with him.

— Kirin’s dad to the rest of the toddlers: “What are your intentions for my Kirin? Be honest!” He later adds, “You expect me to leave my adorable unmarried daughter in this beast room full of men?!” What am I watching?

— Ryuichi: “I know you might be nervous about leaving [your daughter] in a room full of men.” This is so stupid.

— Ah, I knew it: Kirin’s dad listens to Ryuichi’s desperate pleas because he actually thinks that the latter is a girl. Ryuichi didn’t even change his voice or anything. Talk about low effort.

— Midori’s dad eventually shows up. Can we finally have an adult around here? Inui runs away in tears because he thinks he’s lost to a mountain man. On the other hand, he does think that “Ryuko” is cute. Oh anime…

— After being served juice by his daughter, Kirin’s dad starts worrying about how she’ll eventually become an adult woman with her own life. Oh no, the horror! That reminds me that I’ve always found it creepy for dads to be super-protective of their daughters. I’ve always found it creepy when dads try to act all macho with their daughters’ boyfriend. People just find this sort of thing amusing when I actually find it sick. Stop thinking about your daughter’s vagina. Maybe it’s a good thing that these dads are absentee parents.

— The guy who goes on and on about how he had wanted to see cute schoolgirls is also the one who spews such nonsense. Projecting much? Sadly, Midori’s dad seems to feel the same way. I hate everyone on this show.

— Thankfully, the first half of the episode draws to a close, so we end with a group picture (minus Kirin’s dad).

— In the second half of the episode, we return to our favorite topic of all time: Taka crying over Hayato’s abuse! Yay!

— This is supposed to be a light-hearted comedy, folks. This guy is supposed to be the main character’s best friend.

— It feels like I have to say the same thing week in and week out: bad parents raise bad children. The best part is that she’s an instructor at this school.

— Anyways, what’s the actual gimmick of the second half of the episode? Waiting for these eggs to hatch.

— Of course, most of the kids are too impatient to sit and watch a bunch of eggs in an incubator. After all, they’re normal. Kotaro, on the other hand, can sit and stare at those eggs all day. There’s nothing wrong with being abnormal, of course. He’s just different. And possibly somewhere on the spectrum. The show could raise awareness about what it might take to care for a child like Kotaro, but Gakuen Babysitters is mostly content to just play his oddity off for jokes or cuteness.

— The kid’s focusing so hard, he’s letting off steam.

— Eventually, the chicks emerge from their eggs and it’s super cute. Even Kotaro can’t help but become emotional. Great. Let’s call it here since this feels like a happy ending. At least the second short story isn’t as gross as the first one.

— Oh, don’t worry about this cat. No chicks were harmed in the making of this episode.

Well, I’m sure this will work out well. I’ve been putting Kokkoku off all morning, but I guess it’s time to finally write up this nonsense. 

— Why is the kid silently going along with this? Makoto seems like the energetic sort. Wouldn’t he rather take the credit for himself? Ah, whatever… it’s not like I care all that much about this show. Just a few more weeks and this’ll be over.

— Juri wants to hide Makoto somewhere safe. But if the kid’s not with them, then Takafumi will quickly be outed as a liar. I will now watch as the group is somehow convinced to take the kid with them.

— Slight change of plans: instead of taking the kid with them, Takafumi will go with the kid. Makoto will just have to try and control the Herald from afar. The old man just screams over and over that this is his duty, and the rest of the group doesn’t put up much of a fight.

— Shiomi gives us more repeat information by going on and on about how they can’t give Sagawa time to master his body and recuperate his energy. It’s stuff we’ve already seen for ourselves in previous episodes, so once again, the anime is trying to stall as much as possible. If you pare this story down, Kokkoku might make for a decent 90 min film. It just doesn’t have enough interesting story beats to cover an entire cour.

— Scrawny Hulk isn’t very intimidating, especially when we know that he doesn’t have much of a personality.

— Makoto can also track Sagawa. I assume he can track any Herald then. How convenient. I wonder if he could even control Sagawa if he got more acclimated to his ability.

— Nobody seems to notice that Makoto is giving Takafumi all of the information? Really?

— Sigh. And now he’s lying to children. It’s quite remarkable that the character I despise the most in this anime is Takafumi and not the actual villain.

— I thought the group wanted to hide Makoto somewhere safe. They really allowed some old man to pitch a whining fit and bring the kid to the battle?

— Yay, exciting tree versus tree battle…

— Oh come on, the jig is up then, right?

— Juri comes close to dispelling Sagawa’s Specter, but he sidesteps her attack at the last second. Before he can counterattack, however, he is suddenly distracted by… a baseball? Are you serious? We cut to Shiomi feeding Sako balls after balls to hit towards Sagawa’s direction. They literally went and got a bat and carton of baseballs. Yep, mmhmm, this is what we’re going to do! Herald-Tobino is going to do the bulk of the fighting, Juri will try to sneak up against Sagawa, and I’ll smack baseballs!

— The sad thing is that it works. Sagawa is not very good at focusing his attention on the main threat. Who gives a shit about the baseballs? They can’t even hurt him.

— Sako: “I trained at the batting cage in my spare time! Check out my skills!” Ugh.

— Eventually, Herald-Tobino has Sagawa pinned to the ground. But Juri and Grandpa hesitated, so the villain eventually frees himself. He knows he has to take out Makoto, and yet when he goes to make his move, he still distracts himself with Takafumi. Terrible.

— Then he distracts himself with Majima. Needless to say, he gets caught by Herald-Tobino again. For a guy with super speed and super strength, he’s also super dumb.

— On the plus side, the rest of the family finally realizes that Takafumi is the liar they’ve always known and love.

— Sagawa tries to free himself by hulking out some more. His body eventually crumbles, and this scrawny thing emerges. It’s kinda like shedding his skin. He’s too scrawny this time to be caught by Herald-Tobino, and for some reason, our heroes continue to hesitate. They just stand there and watch Sagawa replenish himself from the blood of Herald-Tobino. This is so ridiculous.

— Some shriveled up husk of Tobino emerges from the Herald and runs up to Makoto. Meanwhile, Juri nonchalantly remarks that Sagawa’s body is still weak. But is the group going to do anything? Nope. Sagawa proceeds to hightail it out of there. He’s not even all that fast. Good lord.

— The group eventually corners Sagawa in a room. This is over, right? Nope. Sagawa claims he can help return Juri to the normal world. How? By listening to his sermons! He’s a cult leader, after all! And he, too, can teach Juri how to control the Specters without the help of the magical stone.

— Aaaaaand it’s flashback time. Sagawa proceeds to tell everyone about his backstory. Something involving his best friend and his father being cuckholded. I’m not even joking. Our cliffhanger is chibi Sagawa seeing his mother having sex with his best friend’s dad. Sigh, just a few more episodes…

Hmmmmmm… 

Dagashi Kashi S2 Ep. 9

I’m not a web developer, but I’ve done some front-end stuff. As a result, this episode kills me.

This bizarre keyboard layout kills me. I sincerely hope it isn’t modeled after an actual laptop in Japan.

The characters’ insistence on saying “internets” over and over kills me. This also reminds me of an interesting article about why Japanese websites continue to look so different. Some food for thought…

I was hoping to see some javascript, but no such luck. How much mastery Hajime actually has over that bastard language is a complete mystery. If she knows how to build websites, she should be doing that instead of wasting her life at a minimum wage job peddling dagashi. Yes, yes, she’s lazy, but most developers will only get in three to four hours of actual productivity a day. This is just an average, of course. When you gotta hit deadlines, all bets are off.

These two end up accidentally creating a lewd website, so they both agree that they got a little too carried away. So what do we see next? This eyecatch:

Hmmmm. The episode actually has another short story involving Hajime and super balls. Apparently, you can make them using simple household ingredients, but I’m not gonna try it out. And if you’re wondering, Hotaru isn’t in this episode either. She probably won’t be in next week’s episode as well.

Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens Ep. 9

The vast majority of the episode is all about Lin’s past. His real name is Maomei, and we learn that his poor, sickly mother sold him off to some shady group. He was then taken to a facility where they trained young boys to become assassins. As a memento, Lin still has a bar code on one of his arms. Anyways, life in that facility was brutal, but he made a friend. During the final exam, they were supposed to work together in order to break free from their prison, but his friend ended up betraying him. Lin had to kill the guy, but this is magical anime land, so the guy is somehow still alive. Not only that, he’s coming after Lin after all these years because…? I guess we’ll just have to keep watching to find out. In any case, this episode reminds me a bit of that one anime about kids being treated horribly in prison. No, not Deadman Wonderland. I’m talking about Rainbow: Nisha Rokubou no Shichinin. Anyways, I was kinda curious about that lady who might have been Banba’s ex-lover, but ever since she was introduced a few weeks ago, she hasn’t reappeared since. That’s a shame.

Ito Junji Collection Ep. 10

This is probably the only time where you could argue that the show’s bad animation might actually be a good thing. ‘Might’ is the operative word here. The adaptation is nowhere near as gross as the manga:

…I’m hungry for some noodles. Is anyone else hungry? Let’s go get some ramen.

As for the second story, if you send a body down a river, it’ll eventually fall off the mat at some point, right? So why is it bad for the body to fall off the mat at the bridge as opposed to any other point along the river? Ah well, it’s just a silly horror story.

Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san Ep. 9

The best moment was when Takagi transitioned from gut-busting laughter to being perfectly photogenic in an instant. The rest of the episode is about what you expect it to be.

Overlord II Ep. 09

It’s yet another episode mostly about Climb! Yay? No, not yay. Every week, Overlord continues to bore me to tears. The only interesting thing about this episode is Princess Renner turning out to be a complete psychopath. But honestly, I’ll be surprised if this amounts to anything. Nothing important ever seems to go down in this series.

Ramen Daisuki Koizumi-san Ep. 10

What…? Is there really blue ramen out there?

Oh my god, there is! You can supposedly add vinegar to the broth and turn it pink. Eh.

We then have this cocoa-flavored ramen. I can’t really imagine in my head what this bowl would taste like. That’s such an odd combination… cocoa and fatty ramen broth.

Here are some bowls of ramen at a place that mainly specializes in conveyor belt sushi. Maybe the portions are smaller than they look, because I’m always full after a bowl of ramen. I can’t imagine also stuffing myself with sushi. The ramen with the shrimp looks nice, though. I’ve had clams in my ramen before, and it’s kind of a hassle to pick them out of the broth.

How do you ensure that the gyoza’s filling is cooked all the way through?

Alright, that’s too much food. I feel fat just watch this episode. I’m gonna move on. Also, I’m saving some money, so no pictures of my own food adventures this week. Sorry to disappoint anyone. I’m saving all that stuff for when Shokugeki no Soma starts up again next season. What’s that? Nobody wants to hear me talk about my lunch at The French Laundry? Too bad.

There’s a gag about how Yuu is a weirdo, Koizumi-obsessed psychopath, but tell me something I don’t know.

Takunomi Ep. 9

In this week’s episode, the girls enjoy alcohol with some dagashi. They should just do a crossover with Dagashi Kash–…

Oh shit, they did! Kinda. Eh, close enough. Anyways, Michiru is trying to lose some weight, so she refuses the umaibo snacks at first. But if she wants to lose weight, why is she drinking every single week? It’s really quite funny how young people casually indulge themselves in drinks after drinks, then act all surprised that all those calories eventually add up.

The girls eventually pair the umaibo with this plum-flavored drink. Umaibo is basically a puffed corn-flavored stick. It tastes alright, but I don’t find it particularly addictive like, say, a bag of potato chips. That’s probably due to culture, though. I never grew up with Japanese snacks, so I didn’t get to try an umaibo until I was well into adulthood. As a kid, I really enjoyed the creamy white rabbit candy, but that’s about it. Oh, there was the fruit-flavored gum that I liked. Anyways, the point is that I’m not particularly intrigued by this week’s pairing. I also wonder if anyone actually relaxes after a long day of work by eating umaibo and drinking beer. Anyways, the girls eventually move onto other snacks, but I’m kinda done with this week’s episode. It’s a good thing that Takunomi is nothing more than a short, because it’s really quite boring.

Like masculinity, it is overrated.

Toji no Miko Ep. 10

Yukari almost looks kinda cool here. But then our heroine finally gets to don those special combat outfits, and the anime completely drops the ball:

C’mon, this was supposed to be a hype moment, but you can barely see the girl behind all that haze and poor lighting. Anyways, Yukari moves against the academies to root out any potential Mokusa members. She also allows herself to be molested by a bunch of noro:

This means another great aradama will soon be summoned forth, so our ragtag team of girls — with barely any training under their belt — will attempt to confront the big, bad villain before its too late. Not only is there another cour left, the first cour isn’t even done. I obviously don’t know what’s going to happen next, but Kanami and her friends aren’t going to win. I’m actually curious how the story’s going to handle the mid-point climax.

Apparently, some of Hinata’s “friends” have come by to see the group’s relay test. They are from the Hanyu Daisan High School track team, and they must know Hinata well enough if they’re going to take time out of their day to see her. The short girl hinted at her deeper issues way back in episode six. To quickly recap what we learned that week, she didn’t like how her former teammates felt obligated to help her. She didn’t like that they would pretend to be nice around her, but whenever she left the room, they’d immediately talk behind her back. Hinata confided this to Shirase and Shirase alone; the other two have no clue that the girl has such major hang-ups. In any case, these girls the same ones from back then. It’s possible that they’ve grown up and realized the errors of their ways. On the other hand, they might only be here to relieve themselves of their guilt. After all, why go on air to apologize? Why not just reach out to Hinata privately?

Later in the episode, the girls are supposed to send out New Year’s cards, but Hinata only made one out to her manager at her part-time job. We knew she didn’t have any friends outside of Mari, Shirase and Yuzuki, but what about her family? Anyways, Mari wonders why Hinata didn’t make any cards for the Hanyu Daisan girls. The former track member quickly changes the subject then runs off to privately let off some steam in the cold, Antarctic air. Since Shirase is the only person who knows anything about Hinata’s deeper issues, she goes after the girl. Hinata really doesn’t wanna deal with this, though. As a result, Shirase doesn’t even know how to react; she’s just speechless. Has Hinata been bottling up her feelings of anger and betrayal all this time? When she returns to the group, however, she’s back to being all smiles. Is she just good at compartmentalizing her feelings or is she just putting on a brave face? We’ll have to wait and see. As for Shirase, all she can do is stew in her worries throughout the course of the day. She wants to talk to Hinata about her issues, but their schedule is jam-packed with activities. Plus, since Mari and Yuzuki don’t know anything about Hinata’s past, it’d be awkward to bring the topic up around them.

I’m surprised that Hinata still has those girls on her phone if she dislikes seeing them so badly. Still, she can’t quite bring herself to delete them, so it’s obvious that she hasn’t quite moved on from the past. Those girls won’t give up either. They’ve sent an email addressed to the entire expedition team probably because they can’t reach Hinata directly. Shirase knows she shouldn’t read an email that is meant to be private, but she feels as though she needs to know what’s going on with Hinata. It’s a tough call. I don’t think I would’ve done it, but I don’t blame the girl for doing what she thinks is necessary to help her friend. I don’t blame Hinata for being mad either. I’d be pissed too. I’m stubborn, though. If I don’t want my friends’ help, then I don’t want my friends’ help. I know this is an anime about friendship and teamwork, and as such, the other three are supposed to help Hinata get through her issues. But everyone approaches their problems in their own way. I prefer to tackle mine on my own and at my own pace. Until it adversely affects the rest of my life, I don’t see the need to get outside help. I’m just speaking for myself, though. I’m sure Hinata will be glad that Shirase couldn’t help being nosy by the end of the episode.

So what really happened back then? Hinata was one of the best runners on her team, but at the same time, she wanted the third years to have their time in the spotlight. She ended up being chosen to compete over the upperclassmen. Her friends said they supported her, but around the third years, they were too scared to voice their true feelings. They lied instead and inadvertently badmouthed Hinata. I believe that was the case. I don’t think they necessarily betrayed her. You would have to assume the worst to come away with that sort of interpretation. In truth, Hinata’s former friends were just a bunch of frightened girls. Not only that, they felt they had to respect their upperclassmen since Japanese culture puts a huge emphasis on that sort of thing. I think Hinata overreacted in that moment. She later claims that people went on and spread rumors about her. I can’t defend that, but I wonder who the true culprits were? Her friends? Or those third-years? Still, nothing got resolved because Hinata simply ran away. She ran away from the track team, and she ran away from high school.

Hinata says she wants to go an empty place with no one to tie her down, but it’s not as though she’s tied down at all back home. She doesn’t go to school, and she even earns money for herself. For all intents and purposes, she already quite independent. She’s clearly still bothered by the past, but she’s overcompensating here so that her friends will drop the issue. But Shirase’s the most stubborn out of all of them, so she’s not going to drop anything. She forces the one-on-one conversation anyway later that day. It’s not that Shirase has any quick-fix solutions to offer, but she at least wants to empathize. After all, she’s been the subject of cruel rumors before. Maybe she feels as though Hinata doesn’t have to be all smiles all the time. Shirase doesn’t feel the need to lie about her feelings. If she’s pissed, you’ll know she’s pissed. Hinata appreciates the gesture, but the independent girl still wants to take care of her own issues on her own. She re-iterates that they are different people, so they don’t need to approach everything the same way. That’s why she can put on a brave face despite everything. I want to agree with her, but the story clearly doesn’t. Again, Shirase is stubborn, so near the end of the episode, she decides to lend a bit of her “piss off” attitude and tells Hinata’s former friends that the girl isn’t hung up on them at all. If Hinata won’t confront them, then she will. Mari eventually picks up on the thread and joins in. As for Yuzuki… she’s an expert on friendship, I guess. Hinata can’t help but be overwhelmed with emotions.

But honestly — and I’ll probably catch flak for this — I’m ambivalent about this episode’s conclusion. We only get to hear Hinata’s side of the story, and even then, I feel as though she overreacted by quitting the team so suddenly. Like I already said, I can’t defend the rumors that were spread about her, but we don’t really know who spread those rumors, do we? Plus, even if her former friends are only here because they feel guilty, there’s no need to tell them off. Just let it go. What’s the difference between Hinata kicking around some snow in anger and getting on air and telling three girls to piss off in anger? Is one supposed to be better than the other? They are both cathartic in their own ways, but I guess we now get to feel as though we’ve taught some high school girls the lesson that we think they sorely deserve. No one’s even denying that Hinata has gone forward and accomplished something cool without her former friends. They just want to apologize. She doesn’t have to be friends with them again, and she can tell them that privately. I just don’t like Shirase telling them off in front of a camera. It’s one thing to be petty in private, but this is really immature. Not only that, Hinata is still hung up on them. If she has moved on, she wouldn’t have reacted at all to her former friends’ sudden reappearance. She also still had their contact info on her phone, which she struggled to delete. What did we end up solving this week anyway? I think I would’ve preferred to see Hinata handle things in her own way instead of just adopting Shirase’s world view. Oh well.

Misc. notes & observations:

— Cabin fever is real, folks.

— I like the callback to last week’s episode about sunburning. In last week’s episode, Mari was warned about taking off her protective gear when working outside, but the girl didn’t heed the advice. As a result, even some familiar faces can’t help but laugh at her. Mari resort to quick remedies, but as expected, they don’t work.

— The instagram gifs that also double as title cards are always so amusing.

— It’s also time to confront the past in other ways. Even though this episode is all about Hinata, the story is still doing the legwork to set up the final few episodes.

— Some poor girl is despairing over the lack of contact between her and her boyfriend. Long distance relationships are tough, man. I would know.

— A Place Further Than The Universe isn’t the best looking anime this season, but it’s no slouch either.

— Never take Mari to the poker table; she’s a blabbermouth. But apparently, Shirase took after her mother in mahjong. Man, I haven’t played that game in over a decade.

— Same.

— That lovesick lady is going nuts.

— I rather like Hinata’s honesty: “If it would make me feel better, I might [forgive my former friends]. But when I imagine them looking all relieved afterwords [sic], it gets under my skin.” Then again, I’m also petty.

— Oh, that crazy lady finally got an email from her beloved. She’s so happy even though she has no clue what the message has to say.

Isn’t it odd that people keep thinking that Violet looks like an actual doll? Maybe it’s just odd to me, but I mean, this is an actual doll. You can tell, because it looks a bit creepy. Why do we often find dolls creepy? It’s because they like to inhabit that uncanny valley. Creepy dolls are unnerve us because although they look like us, they’re just different enough to set off some mental alarms. People’s fear of clowns supposedly work the same way, but I’ve personally found them scary. But I digress. What I’m trying to get at is how Violet is anything but creepy. There is nothing remotely uncanny about her, and this is why I always find it so odd that people find her doll-like. If she was simply pretty, they’d say so. I’m sure Princess Renner is supposed to be attractive, and yet, nobody has ever called her doll-like. Maybe Violet is doll-like, because she also seems so unemotional. But dolls are not just unemotional. There’s a certain vacant quality to them that truly makes them seem as though they lack a soul. On the other hand, although Violet is certainly not very expressive, I never get the impression that lacks a soul.

…

Boy, I kinda went on a tangent there. Let’s get on with the rest of the episode.

— Anyways, this episode appears to concern a little girl by the name of Anne. Whenever I see a little girl with a doll, I get the impression that she’s a rather lonely. Anyways, her mom appears to be terminally ill, and as a result, the parasites have come looking for their next big meal ticket. Violet’s sudden arrival, however, causes the mother to usher the parasites out the door. They try to protest — something along the lines of the girl not being able to live in such a mansion all by her lonesome — but the mother insists on them leaving right this instant. If I have to speculate, I bet the mother will die by the end of the episode. Is Violet here to draft a will? No, that’s not likely. Violet’s not a lawyer, but considering her mental acuity, she might make a decent clerk. Nevertheless, she’s probably here to help the mother write one final letter to her daughter. The girl is far too young to fully grasp the implications of her mother’s mortality. Ah man, this will probably be a tearjerker, huh?

— Anne’s incredulous reaction to Violet talking and drinking is cute, though.

— Yes, that would be urine.

— The mother wants to write “some letters.” I wonder if they’ll all be addressed to her daughter or if she has other people in mind.

— When Anne asks her mother who she’s writing to, the woman answers, “Someone very far away.” Oh boy, she’s a goner. I feel like I already know where this episode is going. She insists on her daughter not bothering them, too. These letters are definitely meant for the girl.

— One reason why I’m glad I’ll never have kids is that I don’t really want to have to lie to them. I understand why some white lies are necessary. You don’t want to tell your little girl that you will soon die. At the same time, I don’t think I could do it. I don’t think I could look into my child’s eyes and tell them that everything’s going to be okay when that is definitely not the case. And I know what you’re thinking: “Hey, you thought Claudia should’ve told Violet’s the truth!” It’s all about perception, really. Violet looks as though she’s old enough to face the truth. On the other hand, this little girl doesn’t. Maybe I’m wrong about that, but how will we ever know?

— I guess this is Violet’s first chance to interact with a child? Well, someone this young, anyway. Princess Renner was definitely still a child… just a slightly older one.

— The look Violet gives Anne made me laugh. It’s like she’s concerned for the girl’s mental health. “Um, you’re talking to an inanimate object…” Violet catches on quick, though.

— Yep, it’s a tearjerker. They say parents should never outlive their children. Children should never have to see their parents die either.

— One thing I gotta say, though: the show lacks strong side characters. Because the job takes Violet all across the continent, we are almost always introduced to new faces every week. And by the end of the episode, we’ll often have to say goodbye to these new faces for good. They’ll reappear every once in a while, but they’ll never have another major role to play. Cattleya, Benedict, Iris, Erica — we hardly know them. Well, we kinda know Erica a bit, but she too has pretty much fallen by the wayside since she got her own episode. What brings this up? Oh, just the simple fact that we’ll probably never see Anne again in any major capacity after this week’s episode. That’s a sad thought. These characters are so important to Violet’s development and growth and yet, they’re all just bit players confined to their respective episodes.

— To make matters even worse, Anne lost her father in the war. Oof. Someone get me off this wild ride of pain and sadness.

— Isn’t this everybody’s worst enemy? Ah, who am I kidding? I’ll probably get just five hours of sleep tonight. Of course, Violet’s just repeating what she heard from Cattleya, and it definitely sounds like something Cattleya would say.

— Violet smiles when she decides to tell the little girl a white lie. She’s definitely come a long way, but this is indicative of the show’s overall narrative problem. Remember when she suddenly went from being a clueless trainee to a brilliant ghostwriter in just one week? A lot of Violet’s character development actually occurs offscreen, so her journey doesn’t feel as rewarding. We don’t feel as though we have been present for some of her biggest victories. In the second episode, she barely graduated from the school for Auto Memoir Dolls. In the third episode, she helped Erica out, so she gets experience but nothing groundbreaking. In the fourth episode, however, Violet is suddenly experienced enough to write heart-rending love letters that the public found themselves swooning over. This anime definitely needed more episodes to tell its tale, but I fear that all those anti-peace rumblings will simply lead to another big KyoAni movie. The studio seems fond of movie-making nowadays.

— It’s a low-hanging joke, but I chuckled:

Anne: “Violet! Until Mom gets here, solve riddles, dance, play house, and catch bugs…”

Violet: “Miss. Please sort them in order of priority.”

— In any case, the girl quickly takes to Violet. After all, our heroine seems to have infinite patience, which is what you need in order to deal with children. But more importantly, the girl is very lonely, and she has no one her age to play with. The girl even confesses that she’d really rather just do all of those things above with her mother instead. She just wants to be in the room with her mother, but she can’t because those letters are meant for her to read later. When the mother said that she’s writing to someone far away, I suspect she means her daughter in the future. She won’t live for long, so she wants to keep sending letters to her daughter long after she’s gone. It’s heart-wrenching, because the audience knows what’s coming. Unfortunately, the girl doesn’t suspect a thing.

— Is the show being emotionally manipulative? It’s hard to say. I mean, the whole point of the story is to make us feel strong, heavy emotions. A better question to ask is whether or not the story feels cheap. I don’t know if I can answer that. At the very least, I’ll have to wait until I finish the episode first.

— The episode is laden with signs of autumn, and likewise, death isn’t far off. Even though there is still a lot of green everywhere, trees are starting to find themselves with dry, naked branches. Brown, dead leaves are beginning to appear everywhere.

— And right on cue, Anne’s mother’s condition continues to worsen.

— Still, I think this episode might be a little too long. I think succinctness would’ve delivered a stronger emotional impact. I feel as though I have to hear the girl cry out to her mother far too often that it’s becoming a bit redundant. It’s almost like we’re torturing the poor child, because we have 23 minutes to cover.

— This is also why I don’t want to have to lie to children. At some point, they’ll realize you’re lying, but they might feel as though they have to play along with you because you’re the parent.

— Anne has a good point: if her mother’s going to die, she may as well spend as much time with her daughter as she can. In fact, it feels like she doesn’t spend any time with her daughter at all. She’s either sleeping due to her illness or taking care of business with those guests that Anne hates so much. We want to believe that these letters are important — that when Anne gets older, she’ll truly appreciate the fact that her mother sacrificed their time together in order to write these letters. But is that really true? I don’t know. I don’t think we’ll ever know. Violet tells the girl that there’s a good reason her mother is busy with those letters, but that’s just one side of the story. It’d be one thing if her mother managed to set aside quality time for Anne everyday, but it really feels as though Anne is always alone.

— Well, after Violet leaves, it seems as though Anne finally gets her mother back… but for how long? Not very. This dark undercurrent cuts through the swelling soundtrack that feels so hopeful. And before you know it, winter comes and goes and the mother is gone.

— Apparently, the mother had Violet write a letter for every single one of Anne’s future birthdays. How many? Fifty letters altogether. We even get to see Anne quickly grow up before our very eyes. Who knows how much of this is real or just pure fantasy. Let’s just be optimistic and say that everything turns out well for the girl. The lesson here is that even though our lives are horribly finite, our love — especially a mother’s love — can be eternal.

— Did the mother make some mistakes like neglecting her daughter a bit towards the end? I’d like to think so. I’d like to think she wasn’t perfect, especially since she has to juggle her illness along with everything else (making sure her daughter is cared for, writing those letters, drafting a will, etc.). She’s only human, after all. And that makes for a far more interesting “showdown” between her and Anne. If Anne was simply clueless, then the anime would be be blunting its own emotional impact. It’s important that Anne had a point. Even if Anne didn’t really understand what her mother was trying to accomplish, there needed to be some legitimacy to her cry for help.

— So why does this episode have to take place after Violet’s mini-depression arc? Violet returns home to her team and breaks down crying in front of them. She probably wouldn’t have been this emotionally open with everyone had she not been through the last two episodes. It’s an interesting episode. I still can’t say if it was emotionally manipulative or not, but it definitely provided plenty of food for thought. It might have even served as an adequate finale to the series, but we know we still have three more to go.

At one point in the episode, Akira pays her physician a visit and learns that her wound has completely healed. After she leaves, the nurse wonders why the girl is unwilling to go through rehab. If she did, she’d be able to run again. In other words, Akira may have physically recovered from her injury, but there’s still a gaping mental wound left untreated. It would make for an interesting finale if Akira manages to find her resolve again. After all, she still loves to run. She even went and checked out a photo book all about running from the library. But who will help her? Haruka is content to wallow in her own self-pity, and Kondo has his own issues to deal with. He might have an inkling about Akira’s deeper issues, but he may not feel as though it’s his place to butt in. Still, if I have to guess, Kondo is the likeliest candidate. He just has to overcome his mental hurdles first. If you’ll recall, he wants to be a novelist, but he hasn’t written a book in years.

One night, the guy goes to get ramen. Right before he can dig into his bowl of noodles, he sees his dear friend Chihiro on TV. The novelist is being interviewed on a talk show. At one point in the program, Chihiro has a reply that stirs up something deep within Kondo’s soul: “…novels are like a lover.” When was the last time Kondo had a lover? It starts to rain, and after returning home from dinner, Kondo goes through his old boxes of notes and manuscripts. He eventually stumbles across not only a photo of his son and ex-wife, but a wedding band as well. He finally remembers that his love for writing was one-sided, and his obsession for it eventually cost him his family. He still sees his son regularly, but one can only wonder how long it’s been since he’s been in contact with the boy’s mother.

Depression comes in many forms. Oftentimes, a person suffering from depression may not seem depressed at all on the surface. And yet, one common thread that we can always find if we look close enough is that pervasive feeling of hopelessness. I’m not suggesting that Kondo is clinically depressed — obviously, I cannot diagnose an anime character from just a few short episodes — but he certainly seems to have resigned himself to hopelessness. He can’t forgive himself for losing his family, so he gives up on writing. Akira treats her love for running in much the same way. She blames herself for her injury. We learned in a previous flashback that her right heel had been feeling weird, but she kept practicing anyway. She ended up overworking herself, and one day, a tendon in her heel just snapped. Not only did Akira feel as though she had destroyed her own dreams, she blames herself for letting her team down.

And last but not least, Haruka also treats her broken friendship with Akira with that same sense of hopelessness. At the festival, she blamed Akira for making things difficult between them, but I suspect she was merely projecting. In actuality, Haruka felt guilty for lacking the courage to reach out to Akira during those difficult times, and as a result, she was the one who made things difficult between them. Haruka can’t forgive herself for ruining their friendship, but she’s not brave enough to admit this to Akira’s face. So in the end, we have three forlorn individuals, shuffling aimlessly through their days because they remained imprisoned by their feelings of guilt. Of course, these three characters are still functional members of society. They can still get up in the morning and fulfill their obligations. Nevertheless, they each have something that they’re depressed about — something that they seemingly can’t confront by themselves.

Akira reveals to Kondo that she had bought a book from the secondhand book fair that they attended. It is yet another novel by Natsume Soseki. In the book, there’s an old bookmark with a faded mark of a swallow, and this reminds Kondo of a nest of swallows that used to be perched right outside the restaurant. One of the baby swallows had trouble taking flight, but it eventually managed to leave the nest on its own as well. Still, Akira wonders what would have happened to the swallow had it failed to fly. Clearly, she’s referring to herself. It’s not that she can’t run again. In fact, her physician likely assured her that going through rehab will have her running like new. But when she injured herself that day, she had to suffer through some dark thoughts. Thoughts of never being able to run again. Thoughts of losing her dream of competing with her friends and winning a tournament. Thoughts of disappointing everyone around her. After all, the track team isn’t doing so well these days. What if Akira tried to run again and this only gave everyone false hope? What if she ended up letting her team down again? None of these dark thoughts are logical, but they are strong nonetheless. They are so resonant that Akira can only hope to push them out of her mind by allowing herself to be consumed by an emotion equally as powerful: love. Imagine being depressed for weeks and weeks on end (or perhaps even months) then one day, you no longer feel sadness. Instead, you are overwhelmed by an intense infatuation. Wouldn’t you pursue that feeling at all costs? Wouldn’t you try to hold onto it and never let it go?

After a long pause, Kondo replies that the lonely swallow could still find some sense of happiness by staying put. Isn’t that what Akira is trying to do? For now, she’s given up on the idea of flying. For now, she’s content to devote her energy to Kondo. Nevertheless, she’s starting to suspect that even if she finds happiness elsewhere, she will never be feel truly fulfilled if she gives up on running altogether. And right on cue, Kondo warns her that the swallow would always find itself staring up at the sky if it gave up on its dreams without trying. Akira, too, will live with regrets if she doesn’t at least try to run again. She can’t be scared to fail. She can’t be scared to disappoint herself and others. After all, there’s nothing more disappointing than a person who refuses to even try. At the same time, however, Kondo should heed his own advice. So to return the favor, Akira also gives Kondo some words of encouragement: she hopes that she’ll be able to read his writing one day.

Akira: “…the swallow that gives up on flying would likely give up on looking up at the sky.”

Kondo (to himself): “The swallow knows that any place where you won’t get wet from the rain will also have no sunlight.”

Misc. notes & observations:

— The episode opens with Akira gazing at the moon, and it reminds her of Haruka. After all, she had made a wish to the supermoon at the end of last week’s episode; she wished for her friendship with Haruka to eventually work out in the end. But wishes are just wishes. She’ll have to take action herself if those two ever hope to become close friends again.

— I think Akira looks better with her hair up, but I’m weird in that I think this is true for almost every girl. Growing up, I remember watching cartoons where the girl would always say to the guy, “Should I wear my hair up… or down?” The guy would then reply back enthusiastically, “Down!” Even as a kid, I disagreed. Oh well. What am I even rambling about?

— Akira seems to have a friendly relationship with her mother, but the woman appears to be relatively clueless about her daughter. She certainly doesn’t know about her daughter falling out with her former best friend. Granted, teenagers typically hide their personal lives from their parents, but it’s interesting that they aren’t closer. Akira’s father doesn’t appear to be in the picture, so it’s just her and her mother in this rather spacious apartment.

— There’s an upcoming book fair, so any thought of reconciling with Haruka is temporarily shelved for now. After all, she just found another perfect opportunity to spend time with Kondo. Moreover, she’ll learn another new thing or two about her manager.

— Immediately after the OP, we see Kondo running up to a blushing Akira at said book fair. Man… just think about it: a 45-year-old man takes time out of his free day to meet up with a high school girl. Yes, they’re meeting at a book fair. Yes, I know she invited him out as just friends. But considering how she’s still in love with him, isn’t he being a bit naive? Isn’t he being a bit cruel in giving the girl the impression that she still has a chance with him? This is why I’ve been saying in recent weeks that Kondo’s actions are inappropriate. I would never do a one-on-one hang-out with a high school girl. At least invite one other person to join you! Plus, you don’t need to recommend books to people in person. Just sayin’…

— As aside, Akira’s look here is cute too.

— Kondo meets an old friend, and the guy immediately (and naturally) assumes that Akira is the daughter. Hilarious. Akira insists that she and Kondo are friends, but even then, they looks kinda shady. I can’t picture myself befriending a high school girl.

— Akira finds herself blushing at a postcard. Unfortunately, Amazon’s subs flashed super quickly here, so I had a hard time reading what the contents of the postcard. After rewatching the scene, I’m still not sure why Akira is blushing. Do you guys know? What did she discern from the short letter on the postcard? Is it simply the fact that she’s staring at something meant only for the eyes of two lovers?

— Kondo tells Akira all about the world’s shortest letter, which was apparently a simple “?” from a writer to his publisher Ah, I get it. When my team is pinging me over and over in League of Legends, they’re just channeling French literary master Victor Hugo!

— Kondo is supposed to recommend a few books to Akira, but he’s like a kid in a candy shop. He’s running off on his own to check out stuff that would interest him and only him. But to be fair, it’s not as if he knows Akira all that well. He just knows that she used to be on the track team. The girl even admits it herself that she doesn’t really read.

— Still, it’s rather rude of Kondo to suddenly start reading a book in the middle of nowhere. He’s taken his glasses out, so he has his book-reading gameface on. He’s practically forgotten all about Akira. Before she knows it, the guy has disappeared from sight. That’s really inconsiderate…

— I wish I could brag that I read a lot, but nah… there’s just so little time in the day.

— The girl sees a post from the track team about how they’ll be holding a farewell party for the third-years. I forget what year of high school Akira is in. I wonder if she has any plans to attend college. Elsewhere, Haruka looks at the same post with a melancholy expression on her face. She’s still thinking about Akira, but she’s so passive about it that she just puts her phone away. Personally, I can’t picture myself in her shoes. She’s depressed about Akira, but she can’t bring herself to find a resolution. So instead, she just tortures herself about their broken friendship day after day, week after week. That sounds so mentally exhausting. Is this what people really do? Are they really so paralyzed by awkwardness that they would rather stew in their own negative feelings instead? Give me awkwardness any day of the week, sheesh.

— Eventually, the girl cheekily texts Kondo a simple “?” He replies back with a “!” Like Victor Hugo and his publisher, she hopes that she and Kondo know each other well enough that words aren’t always necessary. She hopes that he will understand her feelings and return to her soon.

— Kondo ends up buying an expensive book, so the owner throws in a free postcard. Akira gets to pick one, so she chooses one that reminds her of Haruka. This moves Akira enough that she finally decides to like the track team’s post, which Haruka sees. Maybe in our day and age, likes have become the shortest form of letter between two people.

— In the end, did Kondo recommend a single book to the girl?

— I couldn’t resist taking a screenshot of the ramen. Shades of Koizumi-san having an effect on me, I suppose.

— The thought of two people promising to be together forever only to break up in the end depresses me horribly. Of course, we can’t shut ourselves away. We can’t all become hermits. To live life is to risk being hurt… but man, I don’t know how I would cope in that ever happened to me.

— The person who wrote Koi wa Ameagari no You ni sure is a big fan of this guy. As I’ve said before, I’ve only read Kokoro (thanks to Aoi Bungaku).

— Out of insecurity, Kondo suddenly ruins the gravitas of his wise words by adding a “just kidding” at the very end. Good lord. It’s the equivalent to our generation’s “lol.” When we’re not confident in what we’re saying to our friends online, we’ll always add a “lol” to the end of all our sentences. Still, Akira can ignore Kondo’s “just kidding” and focus in on the truth in his words.

Bargain Bin Kirito gets to go on a road trip with seven underaged female characters. There’s not a single male in sight! Are isekai heroes really so insecure that they can’t even stand being in the same room with someone from the same sex?! Yes. The answer is always yes.

— Just look at that dumb face. We almost forget that he is supposed to be a 29-year-old programmer.

— Elves are apparently vegetarians in this universe (if not vegan).

— More in-game shenanigans. It’s kinda remarkable that it has taken us ten weeks to even consider using an item box. At the same time, however, I don’t really know why we need one considering how BBK seems to be carrying a ton of stuff on him at all times. The guy then says he doesn’t really know what his storage space can and can’t do. As viewers, we naturally assume that the main character would investigate this offscreen, but apparently not! What has he been doing all this time?

— We get a montage of the lolis doing wagon maintenance. Stuff like… sprucing up the straw cushions because they keep poking the loli’s butts. Yawn. This sure is exciting.

— Don’t lie, BBK. Don’t lie. It’s unbecoming of you.

— Dude, I’m watching a grown man pretend to be a teenager and make stuffed dolls for his lolis. What the fuck.

— My brain is turning to mush. It’s literally turning into mush. Yes, literally.

— Scintillating mini-map action!

— Captivating loli frolicking action!

— Sad elf-type loli action!

— Terrible leaf-playing action!

— We’re nine minutes into the episode, and not a single important thing has happened. It has been nine minutes of just BBK hanging out with his lolis.

— Finally, one of the lolis takes BBK aside to show himself something odd about the fallen columns around them: they apparently resemble toriis (aka those iconic gateways to Shinto shrines). BBK feels as though he’s seen these same torii before, and not only that, he suddenly remembers a loli from his past! A goddess-type loli?! I like how a major revelation for this anime simply leads to yet another loli to add to his lolidex.

— The girl goes on and on about reincarnation, so maybe BBK has died in the real world. Man, that sucks. Instead of reincarnating into a cool game, he ended up in one of his company’s shitty games.

— But then he goes on to say that he’s never actually talked to such a girl in real life. Rather, he had made a game in his youth that resembled this exact scenario. So what’s going on? All of the games he’s ever touched are merging into one world, and that’s what he’s stuck in?

— Animals eating animals. What a sick, sick world!

— Yes, I realize that humans are animals too. It’s called sarcasm.

— Unfortunately, after just a couple minutes of plot development, we’re right back to inane loli shit. Like, for instance, adopting this wild baby animal out of nowhere. C’mon, that ain’t a loli! It doesn’t belong on the wagon! As a result, the animal quickly makes its departure. Good riddance! Only lolis are allowed around here!

— Delicious pancake-eating action!

— Oh God, there’s an insert song. Make them stop.

— Meanwhile, BBK is studying up on shadow magic, which he likens to a programming language. It’s almost as if… as if the creator of this world had been a programmer! Like… duh?

— Also, what does it even mean for magic to resemble a programming language? It’s much more likely that the writer just wanted to make some sort of comparison that would sound cool to viewers.

— Plus, this looks nothing like programming.

— “Nope, I’m not a lolicon!” says the lolicon as he gropes one of his lolis.

— And like a typical sexual predator, he blames the victim.

— Eventually, BBK bumps into yet another slave trader, but he doesn’t get to buy any lolis this time. He just get to buy a bunch of rats. But it’s okay, ’cause this makes his elf-type loli happy. You gotta keep your lolis in good mood or they won’t evolve, I think. I dunno, I’ve never played Lolimon.

— And because they are not lolis, the rats quickly depart. They’ll probably just be captured as slaves again. This is a rather horrible, disgusting world. After all, our hero is literally a slave owner. He actually owns most of these lolis if you’ve somehow already repressed that memory. I think the only loli he doesn’t own is the elf-type… for now, anyways.

— Lolis butchering cute deer action! We just murdered Bambi’s mother. Tsk, tsk.

— 17 minutes into the episode, and we’re right back to inane loli shenanigans.

— Stimulating drenched loli action!

— This is basically what BBK studied all that shadow magic for. He didn’t crack open that book for anything cool. Nope. He just wanted to wash the grime off of his dear lolis.

— Intriguing loli-sleeping action!

— Electrifying storage space experimentation action!

— What amazing thing does BBK discover? Time continues to flow in an item box. This is not the case with your personal storage. Basically, you can hatch an egg in an item box, but not in your storage. Okay, then…

— So what does BBK do with this knowledge? He stores hot stew in his storage, so when his lolis wake up, they have something warm to eat right away. Great.

— Heartwarming loli-smiling action!

— The episode ends with everyone paying their respects to the brave rats that died in their service of elf-type loli. Also, BBK gets a bell. I’m sure that’ll be useful later. More importantly, I’m finally done with yet another episode of Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody. God, that was painful.

We all knew someone important had to die to spur Theo into action. I just wish Villar had gone down in a much more respectable fashion. Read on to see what I mean. 

— Marrine has enlisted the help of the Nords, so there goes Altirk’s advantage at sea. This new character even refers to Marrine as her “Big Sis.” Are they actually related or is this just an honorary title? More importantly, does it even matter? Only a handful of characters seem to have a recurring role to play in this story. Hell, what ever happened to Siluca’s friend Aishela? Or Priestess Priscilla? Anyways, my point is that we shouldn’t let ourselves get attached to any of these characters. Unless it’s Theo or Siluca, they won’t stick around for long.

— Look at these Viking-esque bois.

— Villar is certain that defeat is inevitable now, but he’ll go out fighting nonetheless. Is this supposed to be heroic? Is this supposed to be honorable? Sadly, Margaret came back just to die with him. She’s happy about this, too. Something about being the last woman to stand beside him. Meh.

— I don’t think he’s stupid. Certainly, he must have known that this was coming when he decided against heeding Siluca’s advice. I guess I just don’t understand why Villar wants to die so badly. I know he’s got major baggage, but enough to suddenly throw his life away? He keeps insisting that Marrine is simply more formidable than he had expected, but I don’t buy it. All of his decisions since the conference have been self-destructive, but the adaptation is so rushed, I can’t get a good feel of his mindset.

— Plus, is the rest of Union really just going to leave Villar out to dry? They won’t even mount a token resistance to help a major ally? Pursuing peace doesn’t mean you can’t resist the enemy.

— Then for some reason, I get to watch this lady dismiss a young man from her bedroom only for her to make out with another dude. I guess she has a harem. There are only two types of kisses in anime: 1) the innocent type and 2) the sloppy, all-tongue wrestlemania. Ugh.

— She, too, will have flee. She tries to protest, but they knock her unconscious. Meanwhile, her manservants will all stay behind to die in battle. Again, their complete disregard for their own lives strikes me as foolish, but eh… what do I know? I’m not a soldier nor will I ever be one. The only thing is that I don’t even know who these guys are. They were only just introduced last week. The sad music is playing the background, but all I can do is shrug my shoulders.

— Yes.

— A love that can only be consummated after both parties have given up. How pitiable.

— It turns out Altirk’s big mirror weapon is useless at night. I suspected that last week, but I thought to myself, “They can’t be that stupid. They wouldn’t actually rely on a weapon that can only work when the sun is out.” Welp, they are that stupid.

— I know this fleet is supposed to look impressive, but I really don’t see how stacking the ships in one giant column is supposed to help.

— In any case, we get to see some naval combat with big explosions, but meh… again, I’m here for the character drama, not the actual warfare. I wonder what Theo and Siluca are up to, but I bet they won’t get any major attention in this week’s episode. I just really wanna see someone off Milza. Marrine going down as well would just be icing on the cake.

— This dork thinks Marrine will stop after taking out Altirk. It’s just like how Hitler decided he had had enough once he invaded Poland. I want to sympathize with Alexis, but he’s such a weak and naive leader. He wants to save Altirk by proposing that Union simply surrenders to Alliance. That’s so dumb, I don’t feel as though I even need to say why. I’d just be stating the obvious.

— According to Alexis, they must save Villar at all costs. Uh, if you truly believed that, you wouldn’t be holding this meeting at the 11th hour. I’ve really lost any ounce of respect I might have had for this guy.

— More battle scenes follow as Marrine’s army is right outside the castle gates. It’s all but over for Villar. We just have to sit through the next ten or so minutes.

— It’s odd that Villar is still commanding his men to defend the castle. He knows that his defeat is inevitable, so why not tell them to flee? Would they not flee? Or does he not really care about their lives? Man, I don’t even know…

— Margaret douses herself in a liquid and turns herself into the living embodiment of fire. Too bad we’re only seeing this now. Too bad her badass moment is also her final one.

— Meanwhile, Villar butchers countless soldiers while droning on and on about how much he loves Margaret. Nobody gives a shit about the lower classes in this anime. The guy knows he’s going to lose, and yet, he insists on taking people down with him. But what’s the point? He won’t kill some important general. He won’t take out a greedy noble. Nope, he’ll go to all this effort just to murder faceless soldiers. Why do we care so much about lords in this anime and give almost no attention whatsoever to the people forced to obey them? It’s like watching one of those musou games in action, but the tone is deathly serious. Plus, I never liked musou games anyway.

— The nobility hoard all the crests to themselves and use it to subjugate others. Equality is impossible when owning a crest means you can take down an entire army by yourself. So what should do? Should we divide the crests up equally so that no one is inherently superior to anyone else? Or do we entrust everything to a God-King and hope that he is benevolent? This is fiction, so naturally, Theo doesn’t have an ounce of evil within him. But honestly, this sort of hero worship is kinda sick.

— On a slightly related note, I like that Caim is portrayed as a murderous bastard in Drakengard. It’s one of the many ways that Yoko Taro manages to subvert our love for this trope.

— Margaret is near exhaustion, so she pushes Villar away in order to sacrifice herself. Like a flame that flickers wildly before going out, she explodes violently. All that’s left is a shadow of herself in the form of white ash. It then disintegrates in the wind. Fucking Villar, man. This hero worship is sick. The guy is noble enough to make believe and fall in love with him, so what does he do? Make terrible decisions after terrible decisions, thereby forcing his subjects to die for him. This earl is a fool.

— He then runs headfirst through Margaret’s fire to kill more people. Great.

— After murdering hundreds (if not thousands) of soldiers, he stops right before Marrine and they embrace. He then gives her his crest and tells her that he still hopes she will wed Alexis one day. Finally, Villar dies. Pfft. He deserves nothing. Marrine deserves nothing. All of these people are horrible, and I hope that the people will eventually overthrow every single one of these lords. I know that won’t happen, though. Sadly, I’m supposed to believe in Theo.

— On the other hand, Alexis kinda sucks, so it’s not exactly a happy ending if Marrine does end up with him.

— Shouldn’t Villar have given his crest to someone else? Then again, he kept saying how Theo continued to surprise him, so I can only reasonably imagine that he never truly believed in Theo’s greatness in the first place.

— Even with Villar’s death, the battle continues because everyone’s dumb.

— All we get to see from Theo is his shocked, pained expression, but he never interacted with Villar enough for me to believe that those two shared a close relationship. But more importantly, he needs to stop screwing around. Theo’s been passive since the start of the anime, and it hasn’t gotten any better under Villar.

— One of Villar’s mages commits suicide via poison. The other one, however, begs to continue treating the wounded. The one manning the giant mirror was probably killed by the bloodthirsty axe girl. Add her to the pile, too. She can go down with the rest of them.

— Marrine then gives Villar’s crest to Milza who gloats to an empty throne room. Fucking great. God, I don’t like this anime at all, but I want to watch it long enough just for someone to take that guy down. I don’t even care if it isn’t Theo. Honestly, I don’t care for Theo all that much. I just wanna see someone take Milza down. He doesn’t have to die. In fact, he’ll probably suffer more humiliation in a jail cell. To these egotistical lords, there are fates worse than death, and that’s precisely why Villar decided to go out in battle instead of simply running away. All they care about is their pride. Everyone else gets to suffer.

— Ahahaha, next week’s episode is going to be a recap episode. Welp, at least I won’t have to torture myself next Friday.

Hopefully, it won’t take Hitomi fifty bajillion episodes just to get through two minutes of actual tournament time. 

— Taiga keeps Hippie Pangolin busy, so Bunny Girl takes her chance to help Hitomi out. We all know Hitomi can’t die, so this is all just kinda obligatory. Like we have to see her get treatment, but at the same time, it’s not like I’m at the edge of my seat because I’m afraid that she won’t make it. As a storyteller, what do you do in these situations? I guess the only way to win is to not be predictable right from the get-go.

— Taiga thinks he can just knock the pangolin over and aim for its soft belly. Hippie Pangolin immediately counters by curling up into an impenetrable ball. According to the San Diego Zoo’s website, pangolins are prey to leopards, hyenas and pythons. Honestly, they don’t seem all that formidable to me.

— lol okay

— Hippie Pangolin opens itself up long enough for Taiga to foolish stick his hand (paw?) in. Whoops.

— And just like that, Taiga loses his arm. Oh well. He still insists on fighting, though. And out of nowhere, Hungry Hungry Hippo jumps in and knocks Hippie Pangolin out of the way. It’s like the only thing he’s good at. All he’s done all series long is knock people out of the way.

— Won’t this piss Taiga off, though? Doesn’t Taiga insist on fighting his battles alone?

— Hungry Hungry Hippo gets brutally stabbed in the stomach, but this gives Taiga an opening. So what does he do? Does he go for Hippie Pangolin’s supposedly weak belly? Nope, Taiga simply goes for one of his enemy’s eyes. Jesus, you couldn’t even take out both eyes to render him blind.

— As a result, he gets stabbed through the abdomen as well! It’s like Hippie Pangolin is trying to tell his opponent where to aim! “Here, dumbass.”

— Back on the boat, Yoko gloats gleefully, but who cares? Get back to the battle.

— Chesty Cheetah wants to have a go at Hippie Pangolin next since she appears to be the only combatant left standing. I mean, there’s Bunny Girl, but we know she can’t fight.

— But all of a sudden, Hitomi’s body starts to glow. A big explosion goes off, and she returns to battle even more “Honey Badgier” than ever. Like, what is this? Did she just go Ultra Instinct? Is she like a saiyan so she’ll just keep getting stronger out of nowhere if you don’t kill her outright? Is “Killing Bites” really just Ultra Instinct but with fangs?! According to Shidoh, this is actually her true form. But if that’s the case, why has she been hiding it all this time? What’s the point? Why not just fight at full strength and crush everyone?

— Honestly, I’m not digging the tanned look. She’s like a furry gyaru.

— According to Shidoh, Hitomi’s secret is that she’s naturally born this way, and this makes her the Origin Beast. Okay then.

— Hey, that’s not your line!

— Aaaand we get a momentum-killing flashback! I know you guys are just dying to see Loli Hitomi in the flesh.

— This guy really thinks he can catch a Loli Hitomi with that tiny net.

— What immediately follows is incredibly boring. Shidoh managed to tame Loli Hitomi with food, then he taught her how to talk. Eventually, he had to protect her from Chinese gangsters, and this is why she’s so goddamn loyal to him. In the end, Shinozaki saved them both because Shidoh obviously can’t fight. Who’s Shinozaki? Oh, just that wild announcer we’ve been listening to over and over. Yep, she can apparently kick ass.

— Still, I’m not here for this nonsense. I just want to see the Destroyal play out. It’s not like the show’s going to convince me to feel anything for either Hitomi or Shidoh. The story is bad enough as it is. Adding a lazy backstory on top of it isn’t going to do any good. All I’m doing is staring at the episode’s runtime, wondering if I’ll ever get to see Ultra Instinct Hitomi truly square off against Hippie Pangolin. Doesn’t look like it.

— Why am I staring at Hitomi’s posterior shortly after Shidoh tells us about him and the girl finally connecting?

— We finally get to see Ultra Instinct Hitomi headbutt Hippie Pangolin, but then the episode ends. Ah well. Tune in again in seven days for the next episode of Dragon Ball Z Killing Bites!

Personally, I don’t care all that much for Shiori. But if you do, keep reading to see how she got herself stuck in this predicament! 

— So how will Arato prevent Shiori from confiscating his precious Lacia? By intercepting an hIE from Egypt — the unit that has the same registration number as L–… this is really boring. Is there really no better way for this conflict to play out? Does it really have to come down to registration numbers? Yes, I know it’s likely that Lacia will end up fighting Methode at the airport, but why not just cut to the chase then? Why even bother with this convoluted business of grabbing some random ass hIE from Egypt in order to do an inspection?

— Oh my God, Methode goes and says the exact same thing immediately after the OP! Gee, why not just attack Lacia and Arato directly? I can’t wait to hear Shiori’s reply.

— She doesn’t want to engage in battle with so much uncertainty… but surely, introducing yet another element to the equation can only increase uncertainty! Look, you guys are going to battle. Face it.

— Lacia is apparently nothing special without her Black Monolith, and she can’t bring it onto the bullet train. I bet she somehow brings it along with her anyway.

— Not only that, Arato has enlisted Kengo’s help, who then calls up Kouka for assistance. So this is going to be one big reunion for at least three of the Lacia sisters.

— All Arato and Lacia has to do is erase the other hIE’s registration unit! It’s like stealing and reselling electronic goods! If you corrupt a chip and then scratch up the engraved registration number, you’re good to go. Apparently, there are absolutely no other ways to discern an hIE’s identity aside from those two methods. Amazing.

— We finally get a glimpse of Arato’s father when he appears on TV. He’s being interviewed about… important stuff. Some project involving 20,000 hIEs, but as soon as he starts getting into the details, Yuka starts opening her big mouth. She seems jealous that Arato might be spending time with Lacia. But aside from Arato, I thought everyone else thinks of these hIEs as nothing more than mere objects. What could she possibly be concerned about? Worst character on the show by far.

— The experiment sounds odd. Some hIEs will be hIEs. Others hIEs will be assigned human roles. These 20,000 units will then live together for a while. Once the experiment is finished, the hIEs that have been assigned human roles will then report their “disatisfactions and desires” to the mayor (also an hIE), who will then use the data to determine how hIEs and humans might coexist in the future. After all, humans currently see hIEs as nothing more than objects — tools to be used to their own ends. They wouldn’t want to participate in an experiment in which they have to coexist with “objects.” I’m not sure how the experiment will get around humanity’s inherent bigotry against hIEs, though. Furthermore, with all their technology at their disposal, I’m surprised they can’t simply construct a virtual simulation to gather their data. Instead, they will have 20,000 physical units pretend to live together. How do you even tackle such logistics?

— The bad guy is watching the same program, and after he turns off the TV, he starts blabbering on and on about how it’s too late to even consider coexistence. After all, AI has surpassed human intelligence, so why would they want to coexist with us? My problem with this scene? Who the hell is he talking to? Why is he sitting in a dimmed office and talking to himself?

— So the bad guys wants to know the superintelligent AI’s thought process. This is why the Lacia-class hIEs have been sent out in the wild. Don’t you think there’s a better way to do this? Again, don’t you think you could simply construct a simulation to gather your data?

— Wait, what? What are these coins for? Is Lacia making a joke that just went over my head because I’m not familiar with these aspect of Japanese culture?

— Also, Lacia’s Black Monolith simply shows up in a car. I thought she and Arato had to race here on a bullet train just to arrive on time. Maybe Lacia already knew what would happen ahead of time, so she had her Black Monolith leave early. And if that’s truly the case, then hasn’t she already predicted what Shiori intended to do? Couldn’t she just screw with the whole registration number thing without even getting her master involved?

— In any case, the girl’s going to try and zap the registration number from a distance. Something something no scope.

— Wait, no, we are definitely relying on a scope. Lacia’s abilities are quite remarkable. Unfortunately, she seems content to play house with Arato. This is what you get to observe when you send superintelligent AI out into the wild. Other than Snowdrop, every single one of the Lacia-class hIEs have sought out a human to serve.

— Lacia’s shot ends up being blocked by (of course) Methode. Gee, it looks like we’ll have to fight after all.

— Anyways, our heroes will have to get closer in order to defeat Methode. Shooting her from afar won’t work. As a result, you have Lacia riding on top of the car while Arato drives it. You’d think a superintelligent AI like Lacia could just do both instead of relying on her human master to operate a vehicle under duress. Driving a car should be simple for her, right? It can’t possibly take up much of her computational power. I suspect we are only seeing this current setup because Arato needs something to do; he needs to appear as though he’s contributing to the battle even though he’s just a weak human.

— Lacia proceeds to turn the car invisible since Methode can’t attack them without direct sight. Despite being combat hIEs, I guess these units aren’t equipped with any other kind of vision (for instance, infrared).

— Arato then tells Lacia to move the planes in order to obscure Methode’s view! Then why are you still driving the car! There’s nothing he can do that she can’t do better… except for that whole accepting responsibility thing, and even then, I’m not so sure I’m convinced she can’t do that either.

— We finally get our hIE-on-hIE combat, and it only took 14 minutes into the episode for this to happen. At the same time, however, Lacia tells Arato to retreat because she can no longer ensure his safety. But if she’s as superintelligent as they claim, then she should know that he would never abandon her. So is she just saying that to curry even more favor from him? Y’know, like “Oh my God, my hIE cares about me!” The other possibility is that she doesn’t know he would push on anyway, which is just stupid. But hell, you never know with this anime.

— Generic men in suits block Arato’s way. Oh no, is it too late?!

— Predictably enough, Kouka shows up in the nick of time to help the hero out. She then immediately engages Methode in battle. I thought she was going to help him out in terms of erasing that registration ID. Plus, where is Lacia? It’s almost like nobody even cares about the hIE from Egypt.

— So much for not wanting to draw attention when there’s a raging inferno all around you.

— Ah, it turns out that Lacia did predict all of Shiori’s moves ahead of time. No wonder she told him to retreat. She still should’ve known, however, that he wouldn’t. Anyways, Shiori’s assistant opens up the container to find that the wrong hIE had been shipped from Egypt. Not only that, all of the explosions now has Shiori trapped in the limousine. It can apparently withstand intense heat for half an hour. Someone just has to rescue her before that happens.

— But she’s been played. There’s an hIE that looks just like Shiori outside talking to people, and as a result, no one will bother with the limousine; they think that the girl is already safe. Methode knew that the whole registration thing would go badly. She also knew that Kouka would team up with Lacia. So why did she not warn her master? Because she wanted to get rid of Shiori while still maintaining the girl’s orders. Okay then.

— Methode claims that they all just want to survive. Well, the thought process for these superintelligent Lacia-class hIEs is not all that different from us humans then.

— Shiori looks really terrible here. Honestly, this whole episode is littered with terrible animation. It’s one thing if the action looks bad, when the character’s just sitting completely motionless and you can’t even draw her face properly, what the hell is wrong with you?

— In the end, however, Methode causes yet another explosion, and this one sends the limousine flying. Then after the credits, we see Arato rescuing Shiori from the car. So did the blast inadvertently send Shiori to safety? Or did Methode spare the girl? I’m not sure, but it’s probably not the latter. Even so, having Arato save the girl gives me qualms. Is she going to fall in love with him now?

Man, why does King have to look so lame? I never expected the master of all Horrors to resemble some fluorescent alien boi. He looks completely different from every Horror we’ve ever seen, which is fine… to a certain extent. My main problem is that King doesn’t even look like he belongs in this anime. Anyways… welcome to another week of Garo – Vanishing Line. I’ve lost hope in this series a long time ago, but since we’re so close to the finish line, I may as well see it to the end.

— King sounds whole lot like Frieza. A whole lot.

— This part looks kinda neat, at least. A lingering remnant of Martin tries to reach out to Sophie, but it’s useless against King. I’ll give credit where credit’s due. I always try to be honest in my reactions to anime. I legitimately do not think King looks good. I’m not just “hating” on the anime because I can.

— I’m now watching King bounce in place like some sort of childish jester. If you want to bring up Kefka, don’t. Kefka at least looked like he belonged in the FF6 universe. Yeah, his character design was unique, but it wasn’t so wild that it stretched credulity. As an aside, I was never a big fan of Kefka as a villain.

— Apparently, everything has gone according plan. King knew that Martin was too pure for him to corrupt, which he is why he wanted Sophie to come to El Dorado. Only the girl’s rejection could break the genius programmer. By dragging Sophie all the way here, Sword unwittingly aided the big, bad villain. What would’ve happened had Sophie stayed behind in Russell City? Well, King’s underlings still would’ve finished ELDONET, but King himself would still be trapped in that ring.

— The city suddenly turns blood red and begins to fall apart. Sword picks Sophie up and tries to escape with her, but the girl has gone catatonic. Unfortunately, she’s now blaming herself for her brother’s fall. Sure, Martin was tricked into doing bad things, but c’mon, he allowed himself to be tricked. He allowed himself to be blind to what was happening around him. Ignorance is not an excuse.

— Amusingly enough, even Bishop seems surprised at King’s actual appearance.

— Lo and behold, Queen somehow survived that encounter against Luke and Gina.

— Speaking of Luke and Gina, they still have to evacuate any remaining humans from the city. All of a sudden, Gina hears some engine revving up in the distance. Jesus Christ, don’t tell me it’s Zaruba…

— Elsewhere, Sophie tells Sword that it’s all her fault, but he tells her not to blame herself. I thought he would then explain why she shouldn’t blame herself, but we get nothing. Um, okay. That was kinda funny.

— They soon find themselves surrounded by Horrors on all sides. But before anything can happen to them, an old face comes to the rescue:

Goddamn, it is Zaruba. I thought Sword absorbed his ol’ buddy to gain additional strength. I thought that was how he could beat Knight so easily back in episode 17. Plus, what was even the point of the bike sacrificing itself for Sophie’s sake if he’s just going to come back from the dead? Sure, sure, Zaruba can’t truly die. And sure, sure, Gina probably left the party to “resurrect” Zaruba. But my main problem is that this just feels dumb and cheap… like the rest of this series.

— King: “No matter the era, they try to stand against me.” Gee, I wonder why. It’s almost like you’re the baddie or something…

— So where did Zaruba get his new body? Oh, just the Land of Guidance. That’s all the explanation you’ll get. I’m not sure I really want to hear more anyway.

— Zaruba’s also being surprisingly chatty. Bad time for it, too. Sword is sad, Sophie is sad, and they’re all surrounded by people desperately very slowly fleeing El Dorado. They’ll live to see another day, but where can they even go? All the way back to the east where it’s safe? Hah, good luck. It took Sword and Sophie forever just to get here.

— Dude, Zaruba, learn to the read the room.

— So what now? Luke informs the group that their only orders is to eliminate all the Horrors. I imagine it’s too late for them to receive any sort of backup. He also says that there’s no need to drag Sophie around with them anymore. Nah, there is. Just wait, Luke. We’ll find a reason to keep her around.

— Meanwhile, King sends ELDO NET out to the rest of the world. How? Shrug. Magic, probably. We can ask all we want, but we won’t get any answers. Anyways, I guess if you are lucky enough to have neither an internet connection nor a cellphone, you’ll be just fine. For now, anyways.

—  Also, by just staring into the app, your consciousness will be instantly whisked away to true El Dorado! Nice! I mean, we already knew this, but it’s quite funny to see people just faint all across the world. Even those poor suckers backpacking across the Great Wall of China aren’t spared.

— King gloats like a typical 2-bit villain who thinks he’s already won. He tells his henchmen (and henchwomen) to eliminate any remaining threats. Why doesn’t he go and do it, though? He’s the strongest of them all, right? If you want a job done right, you gotta do it yourself. Screw it. These villains never learn.

— Queen’s getting herself all healed up like it’s Dragon Ball Z or something.

— We still have no clue what her backstory is. I guess we don’t care.

— Lizzie suddenly appears on all of the electronics around Sword to warn him that King’s plan has already gone into motion. How can we be sure that it’s really Lizzie and not yet another fiendish trick? Ah well, the heroic music is playing, so just play along with it.

— There just happens to be a special storage unit in ELDO NET, and if you go there, you can release all the trapped souls. One simple trick that King doesn’t want you to know!

— Here’s another simple trick: not only does Martin have admin access, but Sophia does too! Brilliant security system! And there you go! Sophie has a reason to stick around!

— Who ends up giving Sophie a pep talk? Zaruba. He’s had such a small role all series long, so I guess we may as well use him now. The bike even tells the girl that the other three intend to go without her. They don’t want to endanger Sophie anymore! Yeah, I don’t get that. King is literally on the cusp of imprisoning humanity, but gosh, we can’t endanger the one girl we’ve been endangering all goddamn series long. This is where we draw the damn line. Pffffffffffffft.

— All of a sudden, that stone they had gotten from the Land of Guidance starts glowing. Maybe if she makes King swallow the jewel, it’ll make his body eject Martin or something. Anyways, Sophie is ready to rumble.

— Gina assures Lizzie that she’ll protect Sword until the end. Huh? I don’t like where this is going…

— In the end, Sophie convinces Sword to take her with him. She’s gotta do what she can to protect the people she loves! Right before they depart, however, Gina walks up and plants a big fat kiss on Sword’s lips. She’s got feelings for him now? C’mon, man, you can’t just throw in random pairings at the 11th hour! Those two haven’t had shared a single romantic moment all series long! Not only that, is she not going to go with them? B-but you just told Lizzie you’d protect Sword until the end!

— We even get a close-up of the kiss, because that’s totally necessary:

It’s like I said in my Record of Grancrest War post:

“There are only two types of kisses in anime: 1) the innocent type and 2) the sloppy, all-tongue wrestlemania.”

— Suddenly, Knight and Queen show up just as Sword and Sophie are about to leave. Of course. We gotta give Gina and Luke something to do.

In this week’s episode, the kids are finally allowed to step foot inside their plantation’s city, and Zorome ends up getting more than he bargains for. 

Homogeneity

But first, we pay those so-called sages a visit. They’re amazed at Squad 13’s recent performances. More specifically, they are impressed by the fact that the team can work together so well despite their differences. At first glance, there’s nothing particularly revolutionary being explored here. Remember Squad 26 and how boring their FranXXs looked? Not only did they look boring, however, they even used the same weapons. On the other hand, Squad 13 is special, because every FranXX is unique. Every FranXX is individualized. The entire squad is also a group of kids with wildly different personalities. They’re not homogeneous like other squads. As a result, the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts.

And it is for this reason that Squad 13 is the experimental group. We can easily surmise that other squads are similar to Squad 26; conformity and homogeneity above all. This allows multiple individuals to quickly fall in line and work together as a team. They can thus easily realize their potential. Unfortunately, nature has always favored diversity. Even in society, we have thrived by specializing. We don’t all do the same type of labor. Rather, I might take up farming, you might taking up smithing, and someone else might take up carpentry. When we put our efforts together, we can achieve greater results than if everyone had been jacks-of-all-trades instead. But this is obvious, right? We all know this, right? Well, not exactly. Japan is very, very homogeneous country. As a result, we often marvel at their sense of community and teamwork. At the same time, however, you can’t help but wonder if they are perhaps limiting their potential by refusing to diversify.

One of the sages feel uneasy about Squad 13’s uniqueness: “The future we at APE exalt is one of calmness and uniformity.” A species can survive without genetic diversity, but they are always under the threat of extinction should a disaster strike. It is much, much more difficult to adapt to the ever-changing environment around you when everyone is too similar. Maybe this is why humans have abandoned the outside world. They can only cope inside their hermetic plantations. This also helps us understand why Zero-Two would stare at one of the plantations’ golden cities and call it lifeless. She literally has klaxosaur blood running through her veins, so she’s all about being different. Her uniqueness is also what allows her to be so much more physically adept than everyone around her. In other words, it’s really quite amusing that the sages continue to pray at the altar of uniformity when they seem to depend quite heavily on Zero-Two’s abilities to save them over and over.

At one point in the episode, Ichigo remarks that she can’t even picture herself ever growing up and becoming an adult. What a weird notion. Of course, this shows you how expendable they are. They are born and raised just to die for the adults. And yet, this feels kinda familiar, doesn’t it? For over a decade, we’ve heard over and over how it’s especially bad to have a negative population growth. Why? Because most modern societies depend on an ever-growing workforce in order to keep up with the rising costs of pensions and social security. With an aging population, however, this is slowly becoming more and more difficult for Japan. There just aren’t enough young people in the workforce. Well, why don’t we just “create” more kids! Clearly, that hasn’t worked. The government has tried to encourage young people to get married and have children, but they just don’t want to for a myriad of reasons. One other solution is to open the borders up to immigration, but as we’ve already seen, Japan favors “calmness and uniformity.” Well, goddamn, something’s gotta give! As a result, Darling in the FranXX is exploring a dystopian future in which we’ve gone to the extreme of literally producing and exploiting kids just for the sake of the adults.

Zorome’s odyssey

The episode opens with Zorome narrating to us. He seems to have a recurring dream that, at first glance, appears to resemble the experience of a child being born.

After the kids receive their medals, Nana relents and allows them to walk back on their own. The city is practically empty, though. You don’t get to see any of the adults. No wonder it’s considered lifeless. In any other series, we’d get those generic scenes of people going about their daily lives. We get nothing of that sort here. Not content to just return home after a short tour through an empty, lifeless city, Zorome sneaks off on his own. He eventually stumbles into one of the buildings, and it’s really quite stark in there. To contrast the gaudy golden exterior, these buildings are filled with nothing but cold and sterile halls of complete whiteness. The kid finally manages to spot someone walking in the streets, but they quickly disappear around the corner when Zorome calls out to them.

He tries to climb down a wall, which catches the attention of yet another individual. She seems initially frightened by him, and this reaction makes Zorome slip and fall. These adults have probably never interacted with children before. The kid ends up knocking himself out, and when he comes to, he finds himself in a woman’s home. I wonder how she transported him here. Anyways, she then tells him something curious: “You know how your body and other things are a little different from ours? The medical checker just wouldn’t work on you.” Is it possible that they’re not even part of the same species? Again, is it even possible that these adults are not even human?

After all, the adults look so weird from behind. Just some odd, humanoid-shaped silhouette of white. When the woman finally takes off her “hoodie,” she is revealed to be quite elderly. I wonder if the other adults are the same. I wonder if there’s even a single young adult in the city. Y’know, someone in their twenties. Anyways, Zorome observes the woman in action, and she’s going about her home with a spray bottle of disinfectant. Considering how old she might be, her immune system might not be so hot. Still, you’d think that with all their technology, their homes would be self-cleaning.

She eventually reveals that she has a partner, but not out of love or anything like that. According to her, they’re just “following an old custom.” Nevertheless, she says, “Life must’ve been so uncomfortable back then.” When Zorome fails to understand what she means, she adds, “Well, they had to rely on others for every little thing. Doesn’t that sound really annoying?” The old woman then offers to introduce the kid to her partner, and it’s just some guy strapped inside a chamber. He’s been in there so long that she can’t even remember what his voice sounds like. What’s the point of being partners if you don’t even need to speak to them? She says that neither of them are dissatisfied with each other, but they also can’t argue that they are satisfied either. These people are so afraid of pain that they’ve stopped living altogether.

At one point, her partner smiles, and the woman says, “He’s getting his dose of happiness.” Sadly, this is what the kids are dying for. Happiness is no longer something that an individual can strive for. Happiness no longer has to be achieved probably because the struggle is so “uncomfortable.” Instead, happiness can just be attained through a drug. Kids are sacrificing their lives to help these old people cling onto their zombie-like way of life. One can only wonder why they all haven’t resigned themselves to these “pleasure machines” for good.” Just hook yourself up to a virtual world. Why even bother with this corporeal existence? Our flesh will eventually fall apart after all. Wouldn’t that be horribly uncomfortable to experience?

All of a sudden, the woman collapses in place because she feels tired. She doesn’t look incredibly old, but you never know how much that is due to technology. Someone simply in their 60s wouldn’t just randomly fall to their knees. She also adds that she isn’t used to talking to someone as much as she’s done today. Man, interacting with others can be so uncomfortable! After all, she doesn’t talk to her partner at all. They don’t meddle in each other’s lives (or lack thereof). As a result, Zorome starts complaining about how Miku nags on him all the time, so the woman suggests that maybe he should change his partner. This quickly makes him admit that he’s not really all that bothered by Miku’s personality at all. He then goes on and on about how she’s actually kinda cute, so he has this urge to protect her.

But listening to him has tired the old woman out, so she arranges to have someone pick Zorome up. When she returns, she finds him in tears. He’s suddenly been hit with a wave of sentimentality, but he can’t quite comprehend his feelings. She feels familiar to him, but they’ve never met before. He confesses that he feels as though someone’s always been looking over him, but she counters that she can’t protect him. After all, it’s the other way around: the kids protect the adults. Still, it appears as though Zorome has always been yearning for a motherly figure in his life, and the old woman stirred up those desires again. When he adds that he hopes to one day become an adult like her, she can only give him a quizzical look. He asks if they could be friends again one day, and she says no. But before she can explain why, her sentence gets cut off. The authorities have come to take Zorome away, but they have to scan him first for whatever reason (radiation?). One of them refers to Zorome as one of the “infected children.” The other guy says, however, that the kids are “basically victims in all this, too.” Hm.

In the end, Zorome reveals to us that he no longer sees that recurring dream anymore. Maybe a small part of the illusion has been shattered for him. On the plus side, he has a better appreciation for Miku now.

Zero-Two’s continued struggles

Something is bringing Zero-Two down. She hasn’t really been energetic self ever since she got that present (a mirror) from Hiro. On the one hand, she appears to be changing on the inside. In last week’s episode, she kept saying over and over how she doesn’t dislike all of the mushy friendship stuff that goes on with Squad 13. On the other hand, nothing has changed for her at all on the surface, and maybe this is why she constantly stares at her reflection. She still sees herself as a monster despite everything. Hiro asks his partner what’s bothering her, but she replies that she’s just thinking about something. “What are you thinking about?” seems like a natural follow-up question. Unfortunately, we only get to see Hiro walk off with Zero-Two. We don’t know if he pressed her any further on the issue. He likely didn’t.

Hiro spends a lot of the episode stealing glances from Zero-Two. He can tell that something is wrong. More importantly, she needs someone to reach out to her. Not only that, they have to be persistent about it. Unfortunately, that’s probably reserved for another episode. After all, Hiro tries again to ask Zero-Two what’s bothering her, but she continues to stonewall him. He might be her darling, but she doesn’t actually trust him with her feelings just yet. And with that, he gives up again. I feel as though he needs to try a little harder, but a mixture of mostly cluelessness and a tiny bit of fear paralyzes Hiro. He’s still not comfortable treating Zero-Two as a romantic partner even though she’s been constantly flirting with him up until now. This reflects the fact that their relationship isn’t really all that deep… not yet, anyways.

Right before the credits, we see Zero-Two examining her fangs. Is she becoming more beast-like? Although Hiro is slowly improving as a partner, I wish he’d take a more active role in helping Zero-Two out.

Misc. notes & observations

— It sounds like this week’s episode will focus on Zorome. If they’re going to devote an episode to each Squad 13 team member, it’ll be a while until we finally get back to the main story. At the end of the day, it all comes down to execution. If they do this well, then it isn’t a problem at all.

— Here’s this week’s token klaxosaur. Also, Ichigo seems content to give Strelizia all of the finishing blows. After all, they have to prioritize survival above all else, and if Strelizia’s spear is the best weapon for finishing off these monsters, then so be it. The problem is that Zorome isn’t content to be a sidekick, so Argentea steals the kill instead. Since this week’s klaxosaur doesn’t seem all that threatening, Zorome’s recklessness doesn’t cost him and Miku anything. In a more serious battle, however, Argentea’s lack of range is a huge hindrance.

— At some point, Mitsuru’s ego will get the better of him as well. He might try to pull the same stunt.

— The sages intend to give Squad 13 a bigger challenge. Not only that, the kids will have to “undergo maintenance in the lab at once.” That sounds ominous. To keep spirits up, however, the sages agree to “reward” the kids.

— Zorome and Miku continue to butt heads, but every pairing is different. This might be their way of expressing the fact that they care. If they ever stop arguing, it probably means that they’ve given up on their working relatonship.

— On the plus side, Ichigo sees those Hiro and Zero-Two doing their own thing, but she doesn’t make a fuss about it. Progress?

— Papa intends to award the kids with medals, but Zorome doesn’t even know what a medal is. The other kids know what they are, though. Maybe Zorome’s just dumb. The bigger news is that everyone will be allowed to visit the golden city that Zorome loves so much. Naturally, he’s ecstatic. On the other hand, Zero-Two tries to walk away in disdain, but Nana gives her some bad news: they’ll be conducting some tests on the girl. Zero-Two replies that she feels fine, so she’ll pass on them. I wonder if the adults will actually let that slide. I also wonder if the tests truly make her body feel terrible. Maybe it’s just psychological. No one likes to undergo tests.

— The kids’ outfits are lame. Thankfully, Zero-Two doesn’t have to wear the same get-up.

— Even the city is homogeneous. Why does everything have to be golden?

— Can those guys actually see out of those… hats? Helmets? What do you call those? Are their eyes so sensitive that light shouldn’t go near them? Hell, can we even be sure that they’re human?

— He then walks up to Zero-Two and calls her “a former Nine.” Huh?

— Zorome sticks his hand out to the adult, but the guy just turns away. I guess nobody shakes hands anymore in this dystopian future. Way to leave the poor kid hanging.

— Goddamn Futoshi was hoping for some grand banquet in their favor. His episode better be good, because right now, he’s just played off as some fat kid for comic relief.

— Some structure with a honeycomb pattern opens up and lets out some steam. The kids marvel at it. Odd. It doesn’t look particularly special to me. Maybe this is what it’s like to be in a cult; everything impresses you.

— Things are still a little awkward between Ichigo and Goro.

— Even the food is all about uniformity. The kid finds it delicious, though.

— Is… is that her heart on the outside or just a design quirk on her outfit?

— Zorome asks the woman if she’s going to eat anything, but she says she can’t enjoy the sense of taste anymore. Basically, she’s so old that her taste buds have died off. Christ, how old are these guys?

— People are going to complain about the show’s lack of subtlety, but as I’ve repeatedly argued before, subtlety is overrated. A show isn’t inherently superior just because the viewer had to put in more work in order to understand it. If you only like something because you managed to figure it out and others didn’t, then isn’t that just a bit masturbatory?

Here comes another charming episode about babysitting. 

— This episode opens with Ryuichi saying, “It happened one winter’s day.” It’s winter already? I thought we just went to the beach two weeks ago.

— Usaida has fallen sick, and it doesn’t look like he’s faking it. As a result, Ryuichi will be joined by the chairwoman’s butler. Oh good, nothing but deadpan jokes for at least half an episode.

— How did Usaida catch a cold? By supposedly going to sleep naked shortly after a bath. More importantly, is it normal for a grown man to sleep on a tiny futon on the floor?

— It’s stupid that Ryuichi even considers skipping class just to watch the kids. But of course, he’s so saintly that the thought of doing so doesn’t even bother him.

— Usually, the first half of every Gakuen Babysitters has a lot for me to talk about, but I’m kinda blanking a bit here. I guess I’ve never thought much of Saikawa. He just seems like a comic relief character. He even tries to speak to the kids in his ultra-formal fashion.

— Saikawa runs into trouble when the baby somehow pees on his back. That shouldn’t happen at all with a proper diaper. Taka and Kirin try to help, but they somehow drop all of the spare diapers into a carton of water. Why was Taka even carrying water in the first place? They don’t use baby wipes in Japan? I’m sincerely curious. I’ve never seen anyone actually lug around a bucket of water just to wipe a baby.

— During PE, Ryuichi bumps into a sickly Usaida trying to make his way to the daycare room. The guy is worried about Saikawa, which is nice. It’s a bit silly, however, that he can’t just phone up one of the school’s teachers or administrators to check up on the kids for him. If he’s sick, he shouldn’t even go anywhere near the children. Speaking of which, do Japanese high school students normally jog through the neighborhood during PE? I’ve seen this in Takagi-san too. They’d never let us do that in America. Too much fearmongering here.

— Saikawa ends up fashioning the baby a diaper out of cloth, which is probably even more susceptible to pee-related accidents, but oh well.

— The toddlers all tell Usaida to get some rest, but Midori is attached to Usaida. Well, she’s practically strapped to his back every single day. She even ends up uttering a sound that resembles his name, which makes her mother envious. Still, all’s well that ends well. This feels like a second-half story instead of a first-half one.

— Oh good, the second half will feature Maria and Yuki. What’s really the point of having love interests in a show like Gakuen Babysitters, though?

— Maria’s always such a charmer. Every anime series needs a tsunderekko, however, so Maria fills that quota.

— Yuki ends up confessing that she’s no good with children, so Ryuichi won’t like her. ‘Cause, y’know, all women have to be good with children in order to be proper mates. Never change, anime.

— Maria immediately decides to drag Yuki to the daycare room for “the sake of [her] future.” Her future with babies. Never change, anime.

— The kids immediately take a liking to Yuki, because she’s gentle and… and… her sizable boobs! Y’see, anime must always have both a flat-chested character and a busty one. It’s called contrast! Never change, anime.

— Kids say the darndest things.

— Anyways, the group decides to go on a walk, and Yuki gets paired up with Kotaro. Easy peasy, right? The kid’s a breeze to handle.

— This looks painful.

— The girl, however, ends up thinking he’s crying even though he’s only got a runny nose. Taka tries to help, but he uses her skirt to wipe Kotaro’s nose. Naturally, Maria yells at Ryuichi ’cause (again) she’s such a charmer.

— Eventually, Kirin hands Yuki a handful of bugs, so the girl passes out. She eventually wakes up in the school infirmary where she’s almost in tears because she’s ruined for marriage. After all, she’s just no good with kids so no guy would ever want her. Never change, anime.

— Being the saint that he is, Ryuichi gives Yuki some kind words. The kids also drop by to apologize. Elated that everything has suddenly worked out so well, Yuki goes to embrace Maria out of gratitude. Welp, let’s call it here before this show gets all lemony on us. That’s all folks. What did we learn today? Better be good with kids if you wanna get married. Every married couple has kids, after all. Every single one of them.

Duuuude… I don’t even know anymore. 

— Sagawa continues telling his backstory, and we’re up to the point where he inherited the cult from his father. He wanted to quit, but his best buddy wouldn’t let him. Why? ‘Cause girls and power, man! Girls and power! Chicks love cultists!

— In his rage, Sagawa started smashing up the place. That’s when he stumbled upon the crappier Infinity Stone. From that point on, Sagawa devoted his entire life to researching Stasis. As for his best buddy? Uh…

— Clearly, Sagawa was unhappy growing up, but I still don’t really see the link between his shitty life and his mom cheating on his father. I mean, it didn’t lead to anything. If the family fell apart as a result of her cheating, then I’d understand. But as far as I can tell, she’s just a cheater. That’s not enough to ruin a kid’s life, but whatever.

— Yeah, you got that right.

— Juri feels bad after hearing Sagawa’s story, but she is still going to prioritize her family above all. And the only way she can protect her family is leave nothing to chance. As a result, she starts trying to expel the jellyfish from Sagawa’s body. Unfortunately, it’s going to take several attempts.

— Why not just kill the guy, right? Box cutters are such an anime thing.

— Grandpa doesn’t want Juri to dirty her hands, so he grabs the box cutter from her. But he also hesitates because he’s not a killer. Guess who doesn’t hesitate! C’mon, guess!

— This guy!

— I… I don’t even know, man. Even Takafumi’s family is kinda scared of him.

— All of a sudden, Sagawa’s brain emerges from his dried up husk of a corpse and flies out the window. Wat.

— Sagawa’s brain then stops in the middle of the street and puts down a bunch of super dense and super thin filaments. Takafumi continues to play the hero, so he goes to cut Sagawa down for good. Unfortunately, he should’ve realized that dense filaments you can barely see are always super sharp! Say goodbye to your fingers!

— To prevent her father from dying out, Juri immediately expels Takafumi’s jellyfish. Welp, at least we won’t have to deal with his dumb ass for the rest of the series.

— But back to Sagawa, his brain has now suddenly surrounded itself in some sort of spiky cocoon… wat.

— Ever the sensible one, Shiomi suggests that they now take this opportunity to clean up the world around them. After all, once they return to the normal world, it’s going to be hard to explain all these dead bodies. Some of them are even missing heads. But even if you bury them, someone’s going to come across them one day. Ah well.

— The family drops Takafumi’s motionless body off at a clinic with a note. Since time has stopped for him, he can still keep his fingers.

— For some reason, Majima needs to take off her shirt just to fix her dislocated shoulder. Is this commonly done? I have no clue. I’ve never dislocated any of my limbs. I’ve never broken a bone either. I’ve been pretty lucky health-wise.

— The group depends on Makoto to command Doggy Tobino to dig up some shallow graves for the dead bodies. All of a sudden, Juri tears up because she realizes that she never got the chance to say goodbye to her father. Eh. I mean, I get why she’s sad, but the guy is such a shithead.

— Anyways, Juri tries to say goodbye to Grandpa as well, but he won’t let her dispel his jellyfish. He won’t let her stay behind in Stasis by herself. I bet none of them ends up being trapped in this world, though.

— But no matter what happens, the two of them at least get to say their goodbyes to Makoto. It’d be a touching scene if I cared about this anime, but I don’t.

— Majima is keeping an eye on Cocoon Sagawa, but one short lapse in her attention almost costs her an arm. Sagawa’s filaments are spreading. Even the streets are dangerous. What are the filaments doing? They’re drawing nutrients from the world. Even dead ratties aren’t spared.

— Still, the filaments are made of… jellyfish, I guess. So Juri is super effective against them. So much for that.

— Our heroine eventually uses a ladder to get up close to Cocoon Sagawa. She intends to finish him off for good. When she touches the spiky object, however, her mind is suddenly flooded with Sagawa’s memories and feelings. She realizes that they have both been victimized by their families. Eh. I’m still not all that convinced by Sagawa’s story, but whatever. Like before, Juri will prioritize her family, so you don’t have to worry about her sparing the big, bad baddie. She eventually dispels the cocoon after all.

— But what’s this…? Why, it’s baby Sagawa! He gets to have a second lease on life! Oh boy! Tune in next week to see how everyone will escape from Stasis. We’ll also finally be able to say goodbye to this mediocre series for good.

Before we get started, I’m calling it quits on Ramen Daisuki Koizumi-san. Why? Well, I only started blogging the show in the first place as an excuse to talk about my own ramen-eating escapades. Since I’m no longer doing that, why bother watching the show anymore? I’m keeping Takunomi since it’s at least short and to the point.

Dagashi Kashi S2 Ep. 10

Remember the website that Hajime created for Shikada Dagashi? Well, the store just got its first online order. Both the girl and Coconuts decide that they should do the delivery together, which just seems horribly inefficient. I mean, who’s running the store while they’re gone? Anyways, the delivery ends up being for Coconuts’ dad, and he teases him for hiring Hajime. He swears he didn’t place the online order, though.

Afterwards, Hajime picks up a few beers on the way home. Once she’s all good and sloshed, she starts teasing Coconuts:

His reply is interesting:

He also can’t help but wonder if Hotaru had placed the online order.

Anyways, the remainder of the episode involves Coconuts attempting to finish a manga chapter in time for a contest that is just in two days. He realizes, however, that he can’t do it alone. As a result, his buddies (including Hajime) will help him out.

Also, Hotaru is finally making her return in next week’s episode. I feel bad for that top she’s wearing. It bears a burden none of us will ever know.

Dragon Ball Super Ep. 130

Power creep is fine, but you have to at least be consistent. When Goku got his Super Saiyan God form for the first time, there was a possibility that his duel with Beerus could inadvertently destroy the universe. Meanwhile, both he and Jiren throwing down, but the battle doesn’t feel any different. None of these battles have ever felt different. Without the inane commentary from Krillin and company, you’d never know that Goku had just gotten stronger and faster. This was Dragon Ball Z‘s biggest weakness in a nutshell, and it’s interesting to see that Dragon Ball Super doesn’t really know how to tackle it either.

I am also incredibly annoyed by the fact that Goku’s body conveniently falls apart just as he’s about to win the tournament. What a stupid fucking way to extend the tournament for at least another episode.

Last but not least, I’m not bothered that Frieza is still alive, but what the hell is Android 17 still doing here? Way to render his noble sacrifice completely worthless.

Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens Ep. 10

Banba’s ex seems nonplussed to see him living with a trap. I sometimes wonder if this show is guilty if queerbaiting. Lin and Banba act like a romantic couple; all that’s missing is the sex. The other characters relentlessly joke about it, too. Anyways, the former eventually tries to leave, because he realizes he doesn’t trust his only friend. He’s been betrayed before, and it doesn’t help that he doesn’t understand what Banba is thinking. So to protect himself from being hurt again, Lin’s just going to bail. I dunno, Banba has never struck me as someone who is all that mysterious. He’s just your generic good guy who wants to do good deeds. Lin’s overthinking it.

Anyways, Banba wants to assassinate every single Kakyu Association executive, but Saruwatari (aka Submarine Ninja) has also been hired to do the same thing. The Kakyu Association counters by hiring Fei-lan (aka Lin’s old frenemy). Get ready for an explosive finale? Probably not.

Ito Junji Collection Ep. 11

The first short story takes up more than two-thirds of the episode’s runtime, but it’s incredibly silly. For some reason, weird stuff just happens wherever he goes. At one point, what looks like Godzilla emerges from a lake. But even though the small town has turned into “Bizarro World,” the only people who seem to notice are the six kids in the Occult Club. Personally, I didn’t find this story all that enjoyable. It’s kinda hammy, but not in a very interesting way.

In the second short story, a scarecrow molests a guy to death. Kinda. Not really. Meh, Ito Junji Collection as a whole has been pretty lackluster.

Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san Ep. 10

This one image pretty much tells you everything you need to know about the anime. I hope the last episode has him admitting to himself that he likes Takagi, but the odds are slim.

Overlord II Ep. 10

Gross. Anyways, Ainz tests Sebas loyalty, and in the end, he allows Tuare to work as one of Nazarick’s maids. Why? Tuare just happens to be Ninya’s older sister. Great. What’s not so great is how we spent more than half of the episode just to sort all of this nonsense out. Once again, an Overlord episode moves at a snail’s pace. Unfortunately, the poor girl gets kidnapped by the end of the episode. Ainz will, of course, stop at nothing to help Sebas save the girl. This confuses Albedo, but what’s the point?

The show wants to act as though this will lead to potential drama down the line, but it won’t.

The remainder of the episode lets us see more of Renner’s true nature. Shrug.

Takunomi Ep. 10

Okinawan food is the theme of the day. That pork belly looks pretty good. As for this bitter melon dish?

Eh, not so much. I can’t stand bitter melon, but your mileage may vary. My mom used to always make a bitter melon soup for dinner when I was growing up. No matter how many times I tried it, however, it was an acquired taste I could never pick up.

As for the alcohol this week, we have these Orion cans that look as though they have been amusingly photoshopped into the anime.

Toji no Miko Ep. 11

These suits have only enough juice for about half an hour of combat, so let’s stop in the middle of nowhere to talk about God knows what.

Alright, chill out for a moment there, female Jiren.

Toji no Miko is one of those shows were the bad guys girls are so obviously evil, it’s hard to imagine how they could ever function as a team. We’re nearly halfway through the story, and I still have no clue why anyone would throw their lives away for this Yukari-sama. I know I sound like a broken record about this issue, but it is by far the show’s biggest flaw!

Plus, the villains all have incredibly weak motivations. It’s all just a whole bunch of nonsense. For all their talk, however, nobody ever dies. Nobody ever, ever dies, so the show has next to no stakes. The story is too goddamn scared to kill off any of its precious girls.

They even came up with that stupid utsushi gimmick so that none of the girls would ever have to shed blood…

…unless, of course, it’s Yume dying from the inside from some generic terminal illness. Y’know, the type that always likes to rear its ugly head in anime.

We’ll see if she actually stays dead, though. If anything, they’ll probably want to redeem her. Anyways, tune in next week for the halfway point of the series. Kanami and Hiyori finally get to face off against Yukari in probably yet another deathless battle.

Just to say something nice about this week’s episode, the choreography in the swordfighting was fine.

Shirase remembers the day she first learned of her mother’s death, and she likens the experience to a dream from which she can never wake up. Gin and Kanae tell the girls that they can finally return to where Takako disappeared, but it’ll be an arduous journey; they’ll have to take the snowcat there. Surely, Shirase will jump at the chance, right? Isn’t this why she came to Antarctica? Instead, the girl hesitates. She wants to think about it. She feels as though she’s still living a dream, and if she heads out there, she’ll find something that’ll make her wake up. Unbeknownst to her friends, a small part of Shirase still clings onto that impossible hope that her mother is still alive. Why else would she still send all those emails to her mother? And should she ever confirm her mother’s death, then she would have to give up those emails. Even if her mother can’t respond, Shirase can pretend as though Takako can still read them. This is why she’s still living a dream and not a nightmare.

Naturally, the other girls are concerned about her, but Shirase tells her friends that she’s not feeling particularly stressed or depressed about the situation. This might sound surprising for us to hear, but I believe her. I believe she feels pretty normal, but that’s only because she’s numbed the pain. Even in her flashbacks, we don’t see the girl shed any tears. We don’t see the breakdown that usually accompanies such tragedies. This is because she has been living that impossible dream ever since she learned of her mother’s death. If there’s even the slightest chance that Takako can still read her emails, then Shirase won’t truly believe that her mother is gone. She won’t let go and cry. She’s come this far thanks to this belief. Ironically, her mother’s tragedy plays a large role in fueling Shirase’s determination. It’s not the only factor, but it can’t be denied. She’s known as the stubborn girl who never gives up, but as morbid as this sounds, she has Takako’s death as her source of inspiration. She can accomplish the impossible, because her heart yearns for the impossible dream that her mother is still alive. Unfortunately, there’s almost always a downside: Shirase’s will is stronger than most kids her age, but she also can’t move on. At the very least, Shirase has some self-awareness: “Maybe [I’m feeling] too normal, I guess.”

By numbing ourselves to the pain, we also inadvertently numb ourselves to true happiness: “I was convinced that when I arrived in Antarctica, I would start crying.” You might think she’s talking about tears of sadness, but listen on: “These are the same sights my mother saw. My mother was so moved by these sights. This place is so wonderful, no wonder she wanted to come.” Shirase wants to feel the same joy that her mother felt about Antarctica. She wants to share this connection with Takako. But she can’t. Because she can’t feel the full brunt of the tragedy, she also can’t feel a lot of other emotions related to her mother. It’s not that we want Shirase to have a breakdown and cry like a “normal” person. It’s that the girl runs the risk of sleepwalking through life’s greatest experiences if she never wakes up from her dream: “But that wasn’t what I ended up thinking at all. The most I could muster was ‘Wow, it’s just like in the pictures.'”

Mari reminds her friend how far she’s come and how hard she’s struggled. Shirase never gave up. She pestered the expedition team over and over. She endured her peers’ bullying day in and day out. She worked part-time jobs after part-time jobs just to save up money for this trip. To put it another way, Shirase robbed herself of her youth in order to get to Antarctica, so can she really just abandon her quest now? Can Shirase really allow herself to stop just short of the finish line after coming so far? Mari also brings up the fact that Takako is out there waiting for her daughter. It sounds like a cruel thing to bring up, but when someone’s living in a dream, you sometimes have to play along with their delusions. Is Shirase’s mother still out there? Of course not. We’re not foolish. We don’t need to verify this truth with our own two eyes. But that’s not the case for Shirase, is it? If the girl won’t stop dreaming, there’s no better way to confront the truth than to go out there and verify it with her own two eyes.

But like I’ve said, part of the reason why Shirase’s so headstrong and determined is due to her mother’s tragedy. Once she gets over this trauma, she fears that she’ll truly be on her own, and she’s not sure if she can handle that yet. She’s following in her mother’s footsteps because she’s afraid that she doesn’t know herself what she wants to do with her own life: “But… once we get there, there’s nowhere left to go. It’ll be all over.” Shirase also understands that she might not find anything related to her mother at all. And if she finds nothing, will she keep living that dream? Will she continue sending all those emails to her mother long after she’s become an adult? The girl is smart enough to know that she can’t go on like this; she knows she can’t keep numbing herself to everything. She just doesn’t know what to do about any of this. At the end of the day, Shirase is understandably just a child. Most of us adults can’t even cope with tragedies by ourselves, so it’d be silly to expect a child to do it on her own. And like always, the sensible real life option is therapy, therapy, and more therapy. Sure, not all therapists can help, but not all doctors are saviors either. Nevertheless, it’s the solution that is almost never explored in anime.

Shirase is stuck in Antarctica for the time being, so her next best option is Takako’s best friend. Gin doesn’t mince her words either: “I may not want to believe it, but the fact is that Takako is dead.” Gin also confesses that she’s been in Shirase’s shoes. She, too, came back to Antarctica because she thought that’s what Takako wanted. But that would be Gin selling herself short. Of course Takako’s death played a role, but she also wanted to prove people wrong: “…when we run around on the injustices of reality, make the impossible possible, and allow us to proceed on.” In other words, Shirase shouldn’t sell herself short either. Yes, a large part of her determination is largely fueled by her mother’s death, but she also got to Antarctica through her desire to prove her doubters wrong. Oddly enough, Shirase seems to have forgotten how she yelled “in your face” at her haters when she first got to Antarctica. If she can ever get that feeling back, however, it is something that she can lean on when she finally accepts her mother’s death.

As Shirase journeys closer and closer to where her mother disappeared, the girl keeps asking Gin if she’s seeing and experience what her mother had seen and experienced. She even imagines her mother sitting in a corner, working away on a laptop. Eventually, Gin reveals what had happened that day. They were out in a snowstorm with nothing but a rope to guide them. Somehow, Takako disappeared from sight and no one ever saw her again. Gin got to hear her best friend’s last words, but it almost sounds dream-like: “It’s beautiful… it’s so very beautiful.” As sad as it sounds, Takako was likely just about to die by the time she uttered those last words:

“When researchers recorded and analyzed electroencephalograms (EEGs) of the brain activity of rats during cardiac arrest, they discovered that in the seconds after the heart stopped beating, there was a final burst of brain activity characteristic of conscious perception.

The finding indicates that the source of the electrical activity in the immediate aftermath of clinical death was the brain itself, not an outside or supernatural source.

…

The assumption is that the brain has no activity at the point after the heart stops—and therefore any vivid visual experiences, such as bright lights or seeing deceased relatives, has to be supernatural in origin or something we just don’t understand.

…

It’s over.

Misc. notes & observations:

— Kanae makes a mistake in trimming Gin’s hair. Why even bother? Just let it grow out. You’re in Antarctica, so there’s no need to be stylish.

— Oh hey, look at this report featuring Yuzuki and Mari. The latter doesn’t exactly look natural, but she isn’t freaking out in front of a camera like Shirase normally does.

— The episode’s tone has been pretty subdued so far. No OP, and thus far, no BGM whatsoever. This is the penultimate episode, so I’m prepared for some heavy tearjerking.

— Curiously enough, the girls are peeling onions during this sad scene. Peeling onions won’t make you cry, but I thought the choice of vegetables was apropos.

— The “thrill of the Antarctic barbecue” is gobbling up the food before it goes cold. Sounds… fun. I hate cold, congealed fat. The texture and taste is nasty. But you can’t go with strictly lean cuts, because then the meat will be too tough. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

— Or we could just turn up the heat.

— It’s amusing to see Hinata say that inaction is sometimes compassionate. Yumiko then says, “The ability to give each other space is the proof that you’re good friends.” I don’t disagree with her, but Shirase never considered inaction in last week’s episode. She pretty much strong-armed her way into Hinata’s drama and convinced the girl to not forgive her former teammates. I still don’t like how last week’s episode ended.

— What, no contracts?

— All these bills represent a chunk of carefree youth that the girl had to sacrifice in order to get here.

— Friends can be so blunt. Still, they wouldn’t include her in the picture if they weren’t so sure that Shirase would end up coming along with them. And right on cue, Shirase decides to join the inland team. We all knew that she would.

— As the girls travel further inland, the conditions get harsher and harsher. Kanae warn them that the slightest bit of carelessness can cost them their lives. This is where Antarctica truly begins. The payoff is nice, though. These are sights that most of us will only ever glimpse through pictures and videos. I doubt I’ll ever get the chance to visit Antarctica in my lifetime. It’s just not financially and logistically feasible.

— The next day, a snowstorm hits, and it reminds me of something. You know what’s simultaneously the coolest and scariest thing about these harsh environments? A whiteout. It’s when a snowstorm causes the horizon to visually disappear. The ground is white, the sky is white, and you have no goddamn clue where you’re going. Just imagine being surrounded on all sides by nothing but cold whiteness. You’re effectively blind. That has to be a surreal experience, no?

— Then imagine being the first person to one day to step foot on Europa or Pluto… man, I wish we were still in the age of exploration. All we have are shitty international squabbles and politics tearing our species apart.

— Later that night, Mari’s arc all but wraps itself up: she thanks Shirase for helping her make the most out of her youth. She’s content. I know a lot of you guys might want her to resolve things with Megumi when she returns from Antarctica, but I don’t think it’s necessary.

— I can imagine frozen ramen being served in a restaurant focused on molecular gastronomy.

— The team starts laying the foundation for the observatory, but for now, they just have this dinky sign and a telescope. Honestly, it’ll take years to finish the job, so this leaves things open for a sequel, but at the same time, without Shirase’s personal quest to find her mother, I don’t know how compelling a follow-up series would be. I’m sure the writers could find new storylines to explore, but unless next week’s episode really drops the ball, I’m satisfied with this series.

— I’m amazed that the laptop would even turn on.